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Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama introduced what can only be described as one of the stranger public-governance spectacles of the year. He announced that Diella — a virtual, artificial-intelligence entity appointed as a “minister” of the Albanian government — was now “pregnant with 83 children.” On the face of it, the phrase begs for incredulous laughter: what does it mean for a minister to be pregnant — much less with dozens of children? But, sweeping past the theatrics, the announcement contains a serious kernel of policy and symbolic intent: each of those “children” is in fact an AI assistant, one assigned to each of the 83 MPs from the ruling Socialist Party. These assistants are to monitor parliamentary sessions, summarise what happened when an MP was absent, and advise on who “to counter-attack”. WHAT IS DIELLA? Diella was first introduced earlier in the year as a virtual assistant on Albania’s e-governance platform. Then, in September 2025, she was elevated to a cabinet role – the world’s first AI-generated minister at a national level. Her official portfolio: public procurement, with the stated aim of making tenders “100 per cent corruption-free” and fully transparent. WHY ALBANIA? WHY NOW? Albania has long suffered from issues of corruption, opaque public procurement, and weak institutional trust. When Diella was appointed, the awarding of government contracts had been “a major issue” for the country’s EU-membership ambitions. Thus, the creation of an AI minister appears at first glance as a bold statement: that technology and automation can help break long-standing patterns of human discretion, favouritism, and graft. WHAT THE “83 CHILDREN” METAPHOR SUGGESTS Rama’s metaphor of AI “birth” and multiple “children” is theatrical, perhaps intentionally so. It signals two things: one, the expansion of the AI ecosystem — Diella isn’t just a one-off but will spawn many “offspring” (assistants) embedded in parliamentary work; two, a re-imagining of how governance support might function in an AI-enabled world, where every MP has a digital aide and the system is networked. WHAT IT MEANS FOR ALBANIA On the positive side, this initiative could mark a generational shift: It signals that Albania is willing to experiment in digital governance, leveraging AI not just for citizen services but for overseeing functions like procurement and legislative support. It places transparency and anti-corruption at the heart of that experiment: if tenders are managed by algorithmic systems rather than purely human discretion, the hope is that the “insider deals” dynamic can be weakened. It potentially raises Albania’s profile in the global tech-governance conversation and strengthens claims of modernisation ahead of EU accession. GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS For the world, Albania’s move offers a case study: Can a sovereign government place an AI system at the heart of governance and oversight? If this experiment succeeds, it may become a template for other states seeking to automate governance, reduce corruption, or reinvent administrative workflows. If it fails (or is perceived to fail), it may serve as a cautionary tale about over-reliance on tech rhetoric without institutional reform. In a globalised era of rapid technological change, the notion that AI could “give birth” to dozens of digital assistants for lawmakers is not just a gimmick: it reflects a deeper shift in how states might re-architect the machinery of government — shifting from human-centric bureaucracy to human-plus-machine orchestration. Albania’s announcement that its AI minister Diella is “pregnant with 83 children” is at once eccentric and ambitious. Beneath the metaphor lies a serious policy gamble: using AI to restructure how transparency, procurement, and parliamentary support function. Whether this gamble succeeds will depend less on the spectacle and more on the details: how the system is governed, audited, and embedded in legal and institutional frameworks. For Albania, the stakes are high — both for domestic reform and for its position in a world increasingly attentive to how AI can shape governance. For the rest of the world, the experiment merits close attention: it may point to the next frontier of the state-machine partnership.
