Albania appoints world’s first AI-made minister in bid to end corruption

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has introduced an artificial intelligence-generated “minister” into his new cabinet, tasking it with overseeing the fight against corruption.

The AI program, named Diella — meaning “sun” in Albanian — was formally appointed on September 11. According to an article published on Quartz, Rama described her as a “member of the cabinet who is not present physically” and said she would ensure that “public tenders will be 100 percent free of corruption.”

Public procurement has long been considered one of the most corrupt sectors in Albania, which remains one of the main obstacles to its bid for European Union membership. The Balkan nation of 2.8 million has been seeking to join the European Union since 2009, but EU officials and courts have repeatedly pointed to systemic corruption as a major impediment, according to Quartz.

Rama’s Socialist Party, which recently secured its fourth consecutive term, has pledged to complete EU accession negotiations by 2027 and deliver membership within five years.

Rama first floated the idea of a digital minister earlier this summer, signalling his government’s growing reliance on artificial intelligence tools. 

As part of her expanded duties, Diella will evaluate all proposals submitted by private companies, monitoring for possible indicators of money laundering, drug trafficking, or other criminal activity. Rama said that from there, Diella will also have the authority to "hire talents here from all over the world."

Reports published earlier this year suggest that Diella operates on large language models developed by OpenAI and runs on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.

She appears onscreen as a woman dressed in traditional Albanian folk attire, but the government has yet to clarify what human oversight will accompany her role or how to mitigate potential manipulation of the AI.

Diella was first launched earlier this year as a virtual assistant on the government’s e-Albania public services platform, where she guided citizens in accessing digital records. According to official figures, she has so far facilitated the issuance of 36,600 digital documents and supported nearly 1,000 services.

By Nazrin Sadigova