Bet you never thought you’d be receiving holiday advice from a robot…

Earlier today, VisitMalta launched the country’s (and the world’s) first-ever virtual citizen – Marija. Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), Marija was created to help tourists learn about anything remotely Malta-related: from history to current affairs, and everything in between.

It’s only been a month since Marija was ‘born’, therefore there’s still plenty of stuff she needs to learn. Over time, she shall continue expanding her knowledge, making her future interactions as smooth as possible.

Marija is also set to be available on a mobile application, accessible in multiple languages to enhance visitors’ journeys at any venue. Thanks to this technology, the virtual citizen will be able to interact with users in real-time, answer any questions, and even throw a joke or two into the mix.

“VisitMalta is looking at this project as another opportunity through which the Maltese touristic product is being developed, by becoming more relevant to the 21st century,” VisitMalta CEO Johann Buttigieg said.

“In a nutshell, Marija will become an experience which is guaranteed to bring together art and artificial intelligence to provide a holistic and exciting human experience,” he continued.

Marija is a mix of art and science built through a meticulous, creative process. VisitMalta, in collaboration with Reimagine AI, created hundreds of 2D AI-generated models that were narrowed down to a single image. This image was then brough to life in 3D to have Marija look like a typica Maltese woman, with characteristics and features associated with the Mediterranean.

The language was also crucial in the development process.

A specific lexicon system was custom-built to consider the pronunciation of Maltese words and the particularities of the vocabulary that are synonymous with a typical Maltese conversation. Marija’s neural synthesized voice, which speaks English with a Maltese accent, is based on the voice of a Maltese content creator, Dora Falzon, who recorded many hours of dialogue, and from those recordings, an AI duplicate voice was created.

This voice now lives on independently from the original recordings and can vocalize any new information Marija needs to learn and say in the future.