Virtual Veterans

Virtual Veterans is an innovative venture designed to breathe life into archival treasures about World War I.

State Library of Queensland boasts an impressive repository of World War I artefacts, notably featuring a multitude of personal letters, diaries, and other firsthand accounts from those who lived during that tumultuous era.

Virtual Veterans is an AI-driven chatbot that, when interacted with, assumes the persona of a World War I soldier, named ‘Charlie’. It uses AI techniques and algorithms to provide a guide to rich collections of resources from State Library of Queensland, Trove (Queensland digitised newspapers) and the Australian War Memorial.

Frequently asked questionsopen_in_new

Virtual Veterans provides students with an opportunity to use AI in a positive way for their research into World War I. When ‘Charlie’ answers questions, he also provides direct links to primary sources that students can analyse to learn more about the aspect of World War I they are researching. 

State Library has created a student user guideopen_in_new that contains instructions on how to cite both conversations with ‘Charlie’ and the letters, diaries and newspaper articles that students’ reference in their assessments. Our Schools Engagement team also offer free live-streamed workshopsopen_in_new to introduce your students to using ‘Charlie’ for their research.