The Influence Model Ep. 1 with Colin Raby
By Ben Newman · The Influence Model
On the first episode of Ben Newman's The Influence Model, Raby explains how he brought AI into a congressional office by treating adoption as a cultural project, not just a technical one.
Listen at The Influence ModelRead the story at The Influence ModelRaby was the first guest on The Influence Model, Ben Newman's podcast and newsletter on AI, influence and politics, which featured the conversation as its "From the Trenches" interview.
When Raby arrived on Capitol Hill as a congressional AI specialist, almost no one in his office touched ChatGPT. By the time he left, two-thirds of the staff used it every day. "Nobody bats an eye if you have Outlook open," he says. "But if you had ChatGPT on your screen, people thought you were cheating."
He walks through the playbook behind that shift: start with the most boring, repetitive tasks (press clips, calendar notes, flight memos), build quick prototypes staffers can actually click and use, keep ChatGPT open next to Outlook until it feels ordinary, and follow up like a product manager until the habit sticks. The cultural barriers, he argues, mattered more than the technology.
Raby also frames the stakes: "AI is to politics what the printing press was to democracy. It can broaden participation, but it can also concentrate power in the hands of those who know how to wield it."
