Meet Lumi: Inside AI Balkans 2.0

By Suad Seferi · 5 October 2026 at 23:53

AI Balkans has undergone its biggest platform update since launch, adding its own AI assistant, personalised reading, smarter search and a growing set of reference tools built around the publication's reporting. At the centre of the update is Lumi, the new AI Balkans assistant. Rather than starting with the open web, Lumi looks first at what AI Balkans already knows: more than 130 published articles, country and topic archives, the AI glossary, reviewed tools and hundreds of curated answers. That distinction matters for a news platform. Ask Lumi about Montenegro, for example, and it does not generate a generic summary of AI in Montenegro. It searches the stories AI Balkans has actually published, prioritises articles filed under the country, tells the reader how much coverage is available and can also surface stories where Montenegro is mentioned. For news questions, Lumi works directly from published AI Balkans stories. When the site's own material does not contain an answer, an external AI system can be used as a fallback. Every answer also links back to the stories behind it. Meet Lumi The previous "Ask AI" feature has now become Ask Lumi across AI Balkans. Lumi appears in the top navigation, search, article tools, case studies, the glossary and the AI tools catalogue. On mobile, the assistant is available through a floating button, while a full workspace is available at aibalkans.com/ai. The character also has its own small visual states while searching, thinking and writing. Its name comes from lumen, the Latin word for light. Ask "Who are you?" and Lumi answers: "I'm Lumi, the AI Balkans assistant. My name comes from lumen, the Latin word for light, because I help shed light on AI news, policy, tools and people across the Balkans." The assistant has also been tuned around how AI Balkans itself is organised. Country questions search news coverage rather than unrelated site content, stories filed directly under that country are prioritised, and follow-up questions maintain the original country context. Country and topic queries currently return in roughly a third of a second. Readers who want to continue exploring elsewhere can send an answer directly to Google AI, ChatGPT or Perplexity with the original question and Lumi's answer already included. Articles can now answer questions too Lumi is also integrated directly into individual stories. Every article includes a menu for questions such as: Summarize, Related articles, More from this author, Explain the key terms, What are the sources?, Who wrote this? and When was it published? Readers can also highlight a sentence or phrase inside an article and select Ask Lumi to ask about that specific part of the story. Related-story and author searches can be refreshed through "Different results", instead of repeatedly showing the same recommendations. The idea is simple: reading a story should not have to end at the last paragraph. A news site that remembers on your device AI Balkans is also introducing personalisation, but without creating a central profile of what each reader does. Reading preferences are calculated on the reader's own device. People can follow subjects such as Policy and Regulation, AI Education or Cybersecurity, save stories, keep their reading progress and return to unfinished articles. A For you section can recommend three stories based on previous reading or followed topics. Returning visitors may also see Continue reading and Welcome back, which highlights material published since their previous visit. First-time visitors see none of these features until there is enough activity to make them useful. The last eight Lumi conversations are similarly stored on the device rather than as an AI Balkans account history. Search is becoming part of the reporting experience Finding an article has changed as well. Search now provides suggestions while typing, spelling corrections through "did you mean", and a short answer above conventional search results when the site has enough information to answer the query directly. Topic pages have developed into small coverage hubs. They include an explanation of the subject, related topics and a chronological view of AI Balkans reporting grouped by month. Individual stories can contain a The story so far timeline, while Mentioned in this story connects readers with organisations, people and tools appearing in the article. Glossary terms can be explained without leaving the page. Articles also show estimated reading time remaining, reading progress, update information and short summaries, while photo galleries preserve the proportions of the original images. Traditional numbered pagination has largely been replaced by Load more. From daily news to a weekly picture Another addition is the Weekly Balkan AI Briefing. Available at aibalkans.com/briefing, with its own RSS feed, the page collects the week's coverage and shows which countries and sections received the most attention, alongside the most-read story. It provides a different way of following the region for readers who do not visit every day. Building the reference layer around the news The larger change is that AI Balkans is gradually connecting reporting with structured reference material. The EU AI Act Tracker follows six Western Balkan countries and includes a timeline, upcoming deadline information and a visual overview of progress. Country pages now include a State of AI briefing, refreshed daily, together with facts drawn from the tracker. Alongside the reporting sit an AI glossary, a catalogue of 25 reviewed AI tools, comparisons such as ChatGPT versus Claude, a tool finder and a regional AI directory. AI Balkans has also started documenting practical implementations through case studies. Two are currently published: the AINOW Society AI literacy platform and Lumi itself. On desktop, the glossary, tools, case studies, directory and AI Act tracker can be opened from the Lumi workspace without leaving it. Why we changed it AI…