Albania wants an AI minister, but can a chatbot govern?

Albania has advanced the idea of using an AI chatbot named “Diella” as “the servant of public procurements.”

If implemented, this would be the first time that a government has given political office to an AI.

While AI might not be able to take bribes, the question remains whether Diella would be able to take full responsibility for making decisions, or instead aid the current government.

Albania ranks 80th out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index.

Diella has progressed from a simple Q&A tool launched in 2024 on the eAlbania platform, answering questions about documents, taxes, and permits.

Then, in early 2025, Diella 2.0 was launched, complete with an avatar for vocal and visual interaction to help less digitally literate citizens navigate services.

By mid 2025, Albanians were able to apply for ID renewal simply by voice interchange rather than clicking through forms.

The technical underpinnings of Diella are that it runs on Microsoft's Azure OpenAI.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama sees a digital government intervention as being able to leapfrog Albania's bureaucratic reputation.

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In a speech, Rama came up with a sports analogy to show the agility needed for the implementation of technology into politics:

“A basketball coach makes constant substitutions while a football coach is limited to three. Our government must play basketball, not football.”

Diella's mandate would be to run all public procurement, including those for infrastructure, medical supplies, and IT contracts, with a promise of 100 percent transparency and accountability.

Usually, when a minister is hired, they must swear an oath before the president. One wonders how a chatbot would pledge loyalty and whether the avatar would commit to an act through synthetic speech.

Recitation wouldn’t bind the AI to the oath the way the Constitution requires. Perhaps Diella would be better described as a technical office holder with humans behind it.

And if the AI mishandles an element of procurement, it's unclear who would be held accountable – Rama, the tech team, or Microsoft.

One thing is for certain: if President Bajram Bega approves Diella, it remains to be seen whether Albanian citizens will be able to voice dissent or impeach an AI minister or if they will be left yelling at a screen with no one to answer.

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