“I’m not here to replace humans,” says a woman wearing traditional Albanian clothing, a light-colored headscarf, and an embroidered robe. She stands before the flags of Albania and the European Union and adds, “Some have labeled me unconstitutional because I am not human. This hurts me.”
The speaker is Minister Diella, an artificial intelligence system that delivered a three-minute video speech during its introduction to Albania’s parliament. In September 2025, Prime Minister Edi Rama appointed Diella as Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, making it the world’s first AI to hold a cabinet-level position.
Diella, whose name means “sun” in Albanian, was developed by the National Agency for Information Society in partnership with Microsoft, using large language models from OpenAI. The AI is visually represented as a woman from the Zadrima region, portrayed by Albanian actress Anila Bisha.
Rama said Diella will oversee public procurement to ensure that tenders are “100% free of corruption” and fully transparent. Government contracting has long been a source of corruption in Albania, a country seeking membership in the European Union.
Diella was initially launched in January 2025 as a virtual assistant on the e-Albania platform, helping citizens access government services and documents. By midyear, the system had processed nearly one million digital interactions, paving the way for its promotion to the cabinet. Prime Minister Edi Rama described the appointment as part of a broader modernization effort to improve efficiency and transparency as Albania advances toward European Union membership by 2030.
The appointment has sparked controversy, with opposition lawmakers calling it unconstitutional and warning of potential manipulation and lack of oversight. During the parliamentary session, they banged on their desks and boycotted the Cabinet vote, though it still passed with 82 votes in favor. Addressing critics directly, Diella said, “The Constitution speaks of institutions at the people’s service. It doesn’t speak of chromosomes, of flesh or blood.”
For the rest of the world, Albania’s appointment of Minister Diella marks a concerning step toward globalization and mass restriction of individual freedoms, as AI systems, programmed with liberal and globalist biases, begin assuming positions of political authority.