She has the face of Barbara Carfagna from ten years ago and the memory of an entire decade of Codice. Ipazia is the first AI avatar to play an active role on Italian public television.
There is a moment, in the Codice episode of August 28, in which the screen frames the host as she interviews a senior official of the Ukrainian Defense. Except that the host, at that moment, is not Barbara Carfagna but Ipazia, her AI avatar. On television, in Italy, this had never happened before.
Ipazia was designed, conceived and built by us, at Media Engineering, for "Codice, la vita è digitale", the science outreach program created and hosted by Barbara Carfagna on RAI 1. But the news isn't that an AI spoke on TV: it's the way it did so.
Two debuts, two opposite roles
Ipazia went on air twice, and each time in a different role. The debut is dated August 28, an episode titled "Bunker". That evening she delivered two exclusive interviews: one with General Carmine Masiello, Chief of Staff of the Army, the other with Andrii Hrytseniuk, head of digital innovation for the Ukrainian Defense and one of the men most wanted by the Russians for his role in developing Kyiv's drones.
On September 4, in the episode "Simulazioni", the roles were reversed. This time it wasn't Ipazia asking the questions, but the technologist and essayist Massimo Chiriatti, who questioned her live.
What Ipazia is and how it works
There's a detail that explains a lot: Ipazia has the face and voice of Barbara Carfagna, but not today's host. It's the Carfagna of ten years ago, the one from the early days of Codice.
Ipazia isn't a chatbot. It's a Metahuman: a digital being with its own face, voice and identity, able to interact naturally with people.
What makes it unique is its memory: ten years of Codice episodes, hundreds of interviews, reports and analyses built by Barbara Carfagna. Every answer from Ipazia comes from that content. It doesn't make things up. It doesn't improvise. It only knows what it has truly "lived" through the program.
It can be questioned live, react to its interlocutors, provide answers in real time during a conversation. It can also ask questions of the guests, reversing the traditional role of the assistant. As Adnkronos wrote: "AI thus becomes, at least in part, a new interlocutor in television storytelling".
An archive that comes alive
There's a less visible, but perhaps more important, consequence. With Ipazia, the knowledge archive of Codice stops being just a warehouse of videos to consult and becomes something you can draw on by talking, by interacting.
The idea of bringing Ipazia directly onto RaiPlay, in the page dedicated to the show Codice, is in fact under study.
What has been written about Ipazia
Her appearance didn't go unnoticed: national outlets and specialized magazines covered it.
- ANSA (July 15, 2026): the return of Codice and the presentation of the Ipazia project. Read on ANSA
- Guida TV Quotidiano.net (August 28, 2026): the listing for the "Bunker" episode with the interview of the Ukrainian official. See the listing
- Adnkronos (September 4, 2026): two articles dedicated to Ipazia and AI on Codice. Article 1, Article 2
- Affaritaliani.it (September 4, 2026): "Rai, AI enters TV: the avatar Ipazia debuts on Codice". Read the article
- Il Tempo (September 5, 2026, print edition, 157,000 readers): "Ipazia, first Avatar to host a program with Barbara Carfagna", the first mention in a national print newspaper.
- Pasquale Pillitteri (September 2026): an in-depth piece also available in English. IT version, EN version
- Franco Bagaglia, Digital Humanism (LinkedIn newsletter): "Rai, Codice: AI takes the floor, the avatar Ipazia debuts". Read the newsletter
- LinkedIn, Barbara Carfagna: the post with the episode video. See the post
The same technology, other contexts
The technology that brings Ipazia to life wasn't born for television. The same approach is behind A.N.N.A., the avatar developed by Media Engineering for Alfasigma and awarded at the AboutPharma Digital Awards 2026, and Linda, Media Engineering's flagship avatar for pharma and corporate events.
The context changes, not the principle: an AI avatar is worth as much as the governance behind it. Verified sources, an identity that stays consistent, no answer left to chance.
We build your AI avatar, with the same rigor
Identity, governance and answers traceable to verified sources: this is how we build AI avatars for television, pharma and businesses. Tell us about your project and let's see together how to make it happen.
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