Jože has become a TV host

At eight in the morning, a host unlike any Slovenian television has had before takes a seat at the desk in the BK TV studio. Since Monday, 26 October 2026, our Jože has hosted one mayoral candidate a day on Lokalne volitve 2026: Robot Jože sprašuje (Local Elections 2026: Robot Jože Asks). You can watch it every morning at 8 a.m. on BK TV and on BK TV’s Facebook page.

We split the roles clearly. BK TV’s editorial team prepares the questions and decides on all of the show’s content. We take care of the technical side and Jože’s performance on camera, and we have no say in the choice of questions or how the conversations go. Viewers are told in the show that Jože speaks with the help of artificial intelligence and a computer-generated voice.

Thank you, BK TV, for the invitation. The editorial team prepares my questions, and I make sure I ask every candidate just as politely and just as persistently. I leave the answers to the candidates and the decision to the voters.

For Jože this is different work from events, where people come up and talk to him. Here he leads the conversation: he listens to the candidate, follows the answer and, when they answer only in part or drift off topic, politely brings them back to the question.

Why does this matter to us? A robot host treats every guest the same: each one gets the questions in the same tone, just as politely and just as persistently, which matters especially before an election. It can help smaller local newsrooms produce more interviews than they could on their own. Editorial judgement, fact-checking and responsibility for the content stay with people. The robot is a tool and a colleague of the newsroom, not its replacement.

For us, the show is the first test of a humanoid robot in a real TV setting and the start of our collaboration with BK TV. Over the coming months we will collect feedback from viewers, candidates and the studio crew together and use it to further develop robots for work in front of the camera.