TIRANA: Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said on Thursday he had appointed the world’s first AI-generated minister to oversee public tenders, promising its artificial intelligence would make it “corruption-free”.

Presenting his new cabinet at a meeting of his Socialist Party following a big May election victory, Rama introduced the new “member”, named “Diella” — “sun” in Albanian.

“Diella is the first (government) member who is not physically present, but virtually created by artificial intelligence,” Rama said.

Diella will be entrusted with all decisions on public tenders, making them “100-percent corruption-free and every public fund submitted to the tender procedure will be perfectly transparent”, he added.

Diella was launched in January as an AI-powered virtual assistant — resembling a woman dressed in traditional Albanian costume — to help people use the official e-Albania platform that provides documents and services. So far, it has helped issue 36,600 digital documents and provided nearly 1,000 services through the platform, according to official figures.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2025