By Naysa Shrivastava
In a bid to combine tradition and technology, Albania has hired an AI-based “virtual minister” to manage one of its most corruptible areas, public procurement.
Prime Minister Edi Rama announced that Diella, a digital assistant already known to citizens through the e-Albania platform, will now handle government tenders officially. The move is to guarantee that public tenders are conducted equitably, transparently, and without corruption.
“Diella, the first non-physical cabinet member, virtually born of AI, will contribute to making Albania the country where public tenders are 100% corruption-free,” said Rama.
Diella, named after the Albanian word for “sun,” has been assisting citizens with bureaucratic procedures since January. Pictured as a woman dressed in traditional attire on the e-Albania portal, the assistant answers both vocally and visually. To date, she has issued more than 36,000 electronic documents and helped with almost 1,000 online services.
Now, she extends her role to the governance process itself. Government tender awards will, over time, move from ministries to Diella. With AI, she will scrutinize each bid by private businesses in an objective manner, minimizing the possibility of bribery, partiality, or intimidation.
Albanian public tenders have been a focal point of corruption scandals for years. Streamlining this is regarded as a fundamental step in the nation’s drive to join the European Union by 2030. Rama has labeled this transition a “major transformation,” where technology transitions from being a supporting tool to playing an active decision-making role in government.
Rama, re-elected to a fourth consecutive term in May, had called Diella “the servant of public procurement” and a courageous step towards rebuilding trust in the way that public money is spent.
Diella’s concept first emerged in January, when Rama presented her as a “Zadrimo assistant” from the AKSHI Artificial Intelligence incubator. At that time, she was developed to streamline citizen services. Nowadays, she’s being relied upon to redesign how government itself operates.
In Albania, Diella is not merely a test case for AI-based governance, she’s a harbinger of the way technology can reshape politics globally.