The assessment was made by researcher João Magalhães, involved in the artificial intelligence (AI) model project, during a session on Innovation and Digitalisation in Portugal, at the Communications Museum, in Lisbon, where the Prime Minister was present.

“It is still a beta version, there are still some areas for improvement. We are talking about development and innovation, and innovation is a process of permanent improvement”, explained the researcher from Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

For now, the beta version, available only to researchers at research centers that are part of the consortium, receives information in Portuguese to perform generic tasks, such as summarising and creating ideas, and the text is generated in European Portuguese.

According to the schedule presented during the session, a base version capable of generating reliable answers about the language, culture and history of Portugal should be completed by the end of the third quarter of 2025.

This improved version will also be able to answer questions “with complete security and without risk to the user”.

In the final version, which should only be available in the second quarter of 2026, the model will be able to interpret different data formats and the objective is for it to be differentiating in the interpretation and generation of Portuguese language text and in the knowledge of Portuguese history, culture, science and literature.

Stressing that the project will be constantly updated, João Magalhães stressed that, especially in the current phase, researchers need feedback “from linguists, from the common user, and even the contribution of data from various entities”, which will allow the model to be improved.

The Amália development project is a Government initiative, jointly led by the Minister of Youth and Modernisation and the Minister of Education, Science and Innovation, and has an investment of 5.5 million euros financed by the PRR.

The training and development of the Portuguese 'ChatGPT' is being carried out by five public higher education institutions.

The FCT signed a contract with the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and the Instituto Superior Técnico, as well as with the University of Coimbra, University of Porto and University of Minho, as published on the Base Portal, the statement states.

The project is being implemented in conjunction with national research centers, such as NOVA LINCS, IT, INESC-ID, INESC-TEC, CISUC and ALGORITMI, also involving researchers from the University of Beira Interior and the University of Évora, the Government said.