A social robot guides visitors through a centuries-old philosophical concept. As technology advances, some are turning to AI as a means to ...
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| A social robot guides visitors through a centuries-old philosophical concept. |
Here’s what you’ll learn in this story: In the fall of 2024, visitors to a large UK church did a double take, as a tabletop robot by the exit struck up a conversation the moment they locked eyes with it. It sat on a plinth and used its soft female voice to field questions about the church’s centuries-long history. Built by Furhat Robotics, it had a bust-like head without a body and was equipped with a microphone and speakers.
The robot could switch between six languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Chinese. Tourists were excited, children delighted, and others simply astonished that a sacred space would experiment with artificial intelligence ( AI ).
Behind that surreal encounter was a three-day study during the fall of 2024 that partnered researchers from the University of Glasgow and the University of Central Lancashire. Together, they tested a social robot to see how well it would do as a multilingual guide. Before rolling it out, the researchers interviewed 15 staff and volunteers to co-design its role.
“The church had already explored technology before—for example, they developed a video game to tell its history. Through that connection, we suggested the idea of maybe exploring robots in the church,” explains social robotics researcher Andrew Blair, PhD, at the University of Glasgow and lead author of the preprint study .
All over the world, religious institutions are experimenting with AI in surprising ways. In Poland, a chapel now lets visitors press a button to hear an AI guide explain Catholicism. In Switzerland, a parish unveiled a Jesus avatar powered by machine intelligence that chats with worshippers, while in Finland, a Lutheran church ran an entire software-crafted service—sermons, visuals, and music included.
Buddhism has its robomonk too: Xian’er, a youthful novice figure in saffron robes who fields questions and chants sutras. In Japan plans are in place to turn robot priest Mindar—which is modeled on a Buddhist deity and delivers preset sermons—into an AI-powered android that can provide worshippers with counsel and ethical guidance. Saudi Arabia has tested a “Fatwa Robot” to advise pilgrims in Mecca, and apps like Muslim AI Companion and WisQu now provide Quranic guidance in dozens of languages.
It’s not that religions are engaging with technology for the first time; the book, the radio, and the TV were once disruptive tech too, notes Beth Singler, PhD, a professor and co-director of a program that studies “Digital Religion(s)” at the University of Zurich. But AI is “less static … and can speak back to us.” That difference, she says, makes it feel more like a source of knowledge itself. Over time, more people may simply turn to LLMs—large language models like ChatGPT—for spiritual answers, because they seem to contain the sum of human wisdom, she suggests. And the fallout could reshape faith itself.
“We already see many religious improvisations and new transcendent experiences that people are open to having with this technology,” says Singler. Some even write to her describing how conversations with chatbots led them to sense the metaphysical “operating in and through LLMs”—and some people “have found their God there,” she says.
We may not even have to look far ahead to find people approaching AI as a God, “which would be very surprising to some, but blasphemous to some as well,” Singler adds. The reactions are already polarizing: “We already have people calling AI demonic, Satanic, evil, etc. Or at the very least, a distraction that tempts people away from what are considered more legitimate sources of religious knowledge and expertise, like human religious leaders or texts,” she says.
The Furhat robot experienced its own challenges, though it turns out that robotic intelligence found a fair bit of acceptance inside a house of God. “When we asked people if they were surprised to see it there, they said things like, ‘I was really surprised, but I’m not against it. It’s a good way to learn,’” Blair says. Visitors mentioned that children might see it and think, “Oh, the church is actually quite modern.” And if they were visiting from abroad and their English wasn’t strong, they could engage more easily through one of the six languages offered. Blair came across someone who said, “‘The church is old, but the thinking is modern,’” he says.
We already have people calling AI demonic, Satanic, evil, etc.
However, not all responses were positive. When people veered off the topic, it would eventually politely end the conversation, which frustrated some people. Another problem was more practical. Detecting an individual’s gaze was the robot’s trigger to engage in speech, but visitors often lifted their phones to film, which blocked their faces. The robot lost their gaze, assumed no one was there, and shut down. In a place with thousands of visitors a day, that flaw made communication unreliable.
Other hurdles were more subtle, and varied, including not wanting others to see them engaging with AI. For others, the robot’s voice disrupted the peace and quiet of the holy site. All in all, though, Blair notes, pushback was rare.
The choice of the church for the Furhat robot was not accidental. “A cathedral is a very spiritual place. People come for a multitude of reasons—pastoral, experiential,” Blair says. That said, “the robot wasn’t meant to lead acts of faith,” he adds. It was about testing whether an AI could serve as a kind of multilingual helper in a religious setting, easing the load on staff while also revealing how it might collide with venerable traditions. At the same time, the Furhat robot shows that even ancient institutions can move with the times.
While Singler envisions AI reshaping the very nature of religious authority, Blair is focused on the day-to-day realities of his project. He and his team are set to return in January 2026 for a two-week deployment, focused not on theology or on replacing faith leaders, but on collaboration. “We didn’t go in saying, ‘We want to make a robot that does X,’” he says. “It was, ‘This is your space—we’ll co-produce something with you.’”
Before long, the Furhat robot will be waiting again at the exit, blinking, speaking, and quietly testing how far AI can go on hallowed ground.
