How Countries Are Adopting AI to Connect With Its Citizens With about 80 countries having polls this year, AI will be playing a significant role in who comes to power

Elections, conflicts, and public engagement are a few areas in which governments, all across the globe, are proactively adopting artificial intelligence. Ukraine is the latest to join the club with its virtual AI spokesperson Victoria Shi. Shi will be providing updates on various issues, including the ongoing war with Russia and is based on the Ukrainian singer and influencer Rosalie Nombre.

"My name symbolises our main goal - the victory of Ukraine, and my last name - the artificial intelligence that created me. My work will consist of reporting operational and verified information of the consular department of the MFA of Ukraine to the public," Shi says in the teaser video posted on X.

As reported by the Kyiv Post, the ministry has taken several initiatives to ensure there is no digital counterfeiting. The decision for the virtual diplomat was taken to cut down time and resources to facilitate processes during wartime. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba shared, "Real diplomats will be able to be more effective and focus on other tasks of providing assistance to citizens."

This is the first time the country will have a digital persona that will officially comment for the media.

Gartner predicts that by 2027 less than 25 per cent of government organisations will have generative AI-enabled citizen-facing services.

Late last year, PM Narendra Modi addressed attendees at the Kashi Tamil Sangamam. "This was my first experience. In future, I will use it and you will have to respond. Now, as usual, I speak in Hindi and AI will translate it to Tamil," he said. This speech was converted in real-time in Tamil using the native AI tool Bhashini.

In the northwest Pacific Ocean, a similar approach was adopted by the Yokosuka City government. The body created an avatar of Mayor KAMIJI Katsuaki speaking in English, rather than the native language. It was created as a part of the campaign to outline the attractions and advantages of living in the city and attracting new residents, including foreign residents.

"Yokosuka City has always sought ways to deliver information to as many people as possible. As part of this initiative, we will begin disseminating city information in English using a realistic mayor avatar that makes full use of generative AI technology, a first for a local government in Japan," said a spokesperson for Yokosuka City. The avatar was created using the generative AI service HayGen.

Generative AI is helping Indonesia's defence minister Gen. Prabowo Subianto gain popularity among the GenZ voting population of the country. On social media, his AI-created chubby-cheeked avatar making Korean-style finger hearts and cradling his beloved cat, Bobby, is a much viral phenomenon with #Prabowo tagged posts getting 19 billion views on TikTok.

Ex-Jakarta governor running for Indonesia president, Anies Baswedan in January launched an OpenAI-powered WhatsApp chatbot that answers questions about his policies.

Experts have estimated an investment of about INR 100 crore in AI for this Indian election cycle.

A video of an A.I.-generated avatar of PM Modi addressing voters by their names has been making rounds on WhatsApp. This brings the reality of hyper-personalization much closer to home. Shakti Singh Rathore, a BJP. member, in order to proliferate information and awareness about the programs and policies teamed up with The Indian Deepfaker to create hyper-personalized videos available in regional languages to reach the remotest corners of India.

Rathore calls this an investment in his future with the BJP.

With about 80 countries having polls this year, AI will be playing a significant role in who comes to power.