Meet PMX.AI

Meet PMX.AI - an artificial intelligence avatar launched by Malaysia PM Anwar to engage voters

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced the launch of his AI avatar with a superhero-themed video, and Malaysians can chat with PMX.AI on messaging platform WhatsApp.

Screengrab of a video on Facebook launching Malaysia Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's artificial intelligence double. (Video: Facebook/Anwar Ibrahim)

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KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysians can now interact with PMX.AI, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s artificial intelligence (AI) double that looks and sounds exactly like the man himself.

In a social media post on Saturday (Jul 18) evening, Anwar encouraged Malaysians to chat with his avatar on messaging platform WhatsApp to “begin fostering fresh ideas and meaningful public discourse for our nation and its people”.

The post contains a video portraying Anwar as different characters - from an astronaut soaring through outer space, to a superhero jumping out of a plane with a Captain America-like shield, and what looked to be a younger version of himself leaping across rooftops in a Spiderman-like outfit.

It describes this method of reaching out to Malaysians as the “evolution of national communications”.

The avatar says it is “inspired” by Anwar’s values and vision.

“AI opens a new dimension,” says Anwar’s AI double, pledging to hear people’s voices and better understand their aspirations. “No leader can be everywhere at once.”

The two-and-a-half-minute video shows the avatar flipping through books in the prime minister’s office in Putrajaya, before it turned into a younger version of Anwar in a library, conjuring up books in a spell.

The video also includes references to the Avengers superhero film franchise. It shows multiple versions of Anwar’s avatar walking in a line and captioned “assemble!”, and ended with a reference to the “Madani multiverse”.

Anwar’s unity government is also called the Madani government.

“What if all these sides of me could be present at the same time,” the avatar adds, calling itself a “digital extension of (Anwar)”.

“Ready to listen, assist and serve the people.”

Anwar’s Facebook post on the launch included a WhatsApp message hyperlink for people to communicate with his AI avatar.

PMX.AI can interact with voters, listen to their concerns and gather ground sentiment, according to Zetrix AI, the Malaysian digital infrastructure firm that built Anwar's avatar.

The AI double is so named because Anwar is Malaysia’s 10th prime minister.

In general, agentic AI systems may operate semi- or fully autonomously to achieve specific goals and execute tasks, rather than merely responding to prompts by those they interact with.

Bloomberg first reported on Jul 10 that Anwar was set to debut an AI double to help Malaysians navigate government services.

Anwar’s AI double is trained using his own writings, speeches, and the record of his government’s policies, the report said.

Other politicians may also build their own AI doubles, Zetrix AI group managing director TS Wong told CNA.

“Politicians across the political divide can use agentic Avatar as their omnipresent digital twin to build connections with any number of their voters via WhatsApp or (Zetrix AI’s) Avatar app,” he said.

“By engaging voters and listening to their views on policy issues, politicians get direct feedback on voter sentiments.”

And, like the politicians they represent, the AI agents developed by Wong’s company may help users register for various job-seeking or training programmes undertaken by the government, or execute renewal of their driving licenses, Wong said.

Zetrix AI’s avatars are modelled after the user’s personality.

This is done through what is called a personal knowledge model (PKM), which allows users to train AI agents using their knowledge, preferences and point of view, Wong said.

“Your avatar is as accurate as the data you share (with) your PKM,” he said.

Wong said his company's avatars are also used by other personalities ranging from from feng shui masters and religious scholars to licensed doctors to engage with a wider audience.

“Regular individuals and even companies use Zetrix avatar because it is your digital twin and serves as your second brain as it combines AI with your personal knowledge, perspectives and preferences,” he said.

According to Bloomberg, Anwar would not be the first politician to use AI.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung used an AI avatar to extensively represent him during his election campaign in 2022, allowing it to answer voters’ questions and deliver campaign messages.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has used AI to address audiences in multiple Indian languages.

Wong said his product is able to go further – it can engage in negotiations and sign and verify items on individuals’ behalf, for instance.

These tasks are accomplished “within the boundaries that you set”, and the agents’ actions are “verifiable, recorded in immutable blockchain and legally recognised”, he said.

“It is your AI agent with your official identity and credentials,” he added.

While other agentic AI tools can execute coding tasks or answer emails on a user’s behalf, they do not have the authority, knowledge or capacity to fully represent the individual, Wong explained.

Wong acknowledged the risks of “unrestricted agentic AI” but said the PKM developed by his company orchestrates all responses and agentic actions.

“The PKM serves as a fact-checking and verifier tool, ensuring that all responses are consistent and aligns with the user's preferences,” he said.

“So the better the user trains their PKM, the better the PKM understands the user's intentions and information, providing a more accurate response representative of the user and reducing the rates of hallucinations.”

The PKM also manages a digital wallet bearing the user’s digital identity, ensuring that only the PKM is authorised to represent the user, Wong said.

“There is no room for rogue actions as every step is guarded with strong cryptographic verification and locked in with immutable blockchain,” he said.

As for data security, Wong said users’ personal data are not accessible by “anyone else”.

“Your personal data is stored either as weights in the PKM or in an encrypted harness depending on whether the knowledge is static or dynamic,” he said.

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