The UAE may have made history in appointing the world’s first minister for AI in 2017, but Albania has taken it a step further – by appointing an AI-made minister, one that is not human, to participate in its government.
It belongs to a wider ambition that Albania’s Prime Minister, Edi Rama has, in using AI as an effective anti-corruption tool. The announcement was made on the 11th September following the Socialist Party assembly in Tirana, where Rama informed ministers who would stay and who would be let go.
The minister in question, Diella (‘sun’ in Albanian) will be responsible for public procurement, more specifically making decisions on tenders, which will be taken out of the hands of existing ministries.
Rama, who won a fourth term in elections held back in May, said Diella would become “the servant of public procurement”.
A form of Diella had already existed prior to this point as an AI-powered chat assistant guiding citizens through digital government services via the government’s e-Albania portal, since January 2025. Rama said that Diella had been responsible for helping more than one million applications on the platform.
Albania currently struggles with corruption, even at the government level, and procurement is especially susceptible as an area in which gangs reportedly look to launder money made from trafficking drugs and weapons through public tenders.
The hope is that Diella, as an entirely AI-made minister, will not be corruptible and will instead be able to examine every tender in which the government contracts private companies, and objectively assess each. Transparency International, an association that assesses each company against corruption metrics, reported that corruption risks in Albania were particularly high due to a lack of transparency, in procurement and financial management.
