The country needed a rational figurehead that learned from the past, and did not repeat the same mistakes over and over.

For nearly a century, AnNahar Newspaper has consistently pressured politicians and governments for change and reform, and in a move to increase its readership, wanted to prove to the country that it stands for unbiased, balanced journalism with the purpose of serving Lebanon’s best interest.

So AnNahar created a groundbreaking initiative: an AI President for Lebanon. This first-of-its-kind generative AI system was designed to address Lebanon’s severe political and economic crises by enhancing decision-making.

Trained on 90 years of AnNahar’s historical data, the AI President dynamically integrates current events and historical lessons to generate potential solutions for Lebanon’s challenges.

Every AnNahar issue over the past 90 years was converted into text through Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and transformed into data embeddings for analysis.

This multi-lingual system generates outputs in English and Arabic, accompanied by custom AI voice and dynamic audio visualizations. By incorporating a comprehensive understanding of Lebanon’s historical and current context, the AI President provides informed, unbiased, and contextually-aware responses to user queries. Government officials began using the AI President in cabinet sessions, leading to better-informed directives and policies.

AnNahar experienced its highest readership in history, with over 100,000 responses generated by the AI President. The physical edition of AnNahar sold out in a few hours, website visits increased by 31%, and subscriptions grew by 28%.

The initiative garnered over $25 million in earned media, becoming a trending topic on social platforms like X. This innovative approach not only demonstrated the potential of AI in governance but also reinforced AnNahar’s commitment to fostering a fair and democratic society, ultimately catalyzing tangible change in Lebanon’s leadership landscape.