Development of a virtual assistant with Artificial Intelligence techniques to support citizens on interaction with local authorities

Position: Research appointment (pre-doc) Institute: Uni. Palermo
Posted on: 04/03/2026 Deadline: 03/04/2026

Scientific-Disciplinary Group

02/PHYS-04 - Theoretical Physics Of Matter, Models, Mathematical Methods And Applications

Description

The recent development of Large Language Models (LLMs) and their use with Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) techniques provides the basis for the implementation of virtual assistants (such as chatbots and voicebots), enabling smoother interactions between the user and the system to obtain more consistent responses better suited to the user's needs. The research focuses on building an AI-based virtual assistant that can provide citizens with information on specific thematic areas specific to Local Authorities, drawing on public document repositories. The assistant will be developed to have access to both national legislation and local authority resolutions, which override the former, according to a finely organised algorithmic approach. This data will be appropriately entered into a RAG pipeline that will support the final interaction with the user.

Job posting website

https://www.unipa.it/albo.html

Number of positions

1

Funding body

università degli studi di Palermo