Fika Juliana Putri, a 19-year-old shopkeeper in East Jakarta, plans to vote in the presidential election next week for a once-feared former special forces commander. She likes him, she says, because he's cuddly.

A doe-eyed cartoon version of Prabowo Subianto - produced using generative AI - is emblazoned on billboards across Indonesia. It's reproduced on sweatshirts and stickers, and featured prominently on #Prabowo-tagged posts that have some 19 billion views on TikTok.

Prabowo is the Defence Minister. But on social media, his chubby-cheeked AI avatar makes Korean-style finger hearts and cradles his beloved cat, Bobby, to the delight of Gen Z voters. About half of Indonesia's 205 million voters are under 40.

The general elections on Feb. 14 in Indonesia offer a glimpse of how generative AI may transform large-scale political campaigning, experts say.

The AI-generated cartoon has been central to the electoral rebranding of Prabowo, who is far ahead in polls. Instead of portraying himself as a fiery nationalist, as he did in two prior failed presidential bids, the 72-year-old's new catchphrase is "gemoy" - which isIndonesian slang for cute and cuddly.

"I'll vote for him because he's gemoy," said Putri, a first-time voter. "That's the main reason."

Prabowo - and his doppelganger created using technology from US firm Midjourney Inc - is leading hundreds of candidates in using generative AI tools to create campaign art, track social media sentiment, build interactive chatbots, and target voters.

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