Emilia AI: A Virtual Waifu Created by ITS Students to Support Mental Health

Image: From left, Rafli Raihan Pramudya, Andika Rahman Teja (team leader), and Malvin Leonardo Hartanto showcasing the Emilia AI application and poster.

Surabaya, ELECTICS ITS – Five ITS students have successfully developed a unique innovation called Emilia AI. This artificial intelligence-based application is designed to be an interactive companion capable of providing initial support for mental health, particularly among teenagers. The team is led by Andika Rahman Teja, alongside members Malvin Leonardo Hartanto, Rafli Raihan Pramudya, Haliza Nur Kamila Apalwan, and Fahira Azalea Rahman. Four of them are Informatics Engineering students, while Fahira is a Product Design student. They utilized open-source Large Language Model (LLM) technology combined with the appearance of an interactive character similar to those found in anime. The name Emilia was taken from a character in the anime Re:Zero, with the design also inspired by popular games such as Robin and Firefly from Honkai: Star Rail (HSR).

Originally, Emilia AI was only a project to fulfill a course requirement in the previous semester. However, this fresh idea was later developed further through research support from ITS in collaboration with Avalon AI and Universitas Trunojoyo Madura (UTM). “We wanted to create a virtual character that users could interact with more naturally, with a particular focus on mental health,” explained Andika, the team leader. Development began in March and has since evolved into a more complex system. With the concept of agentic AI, Emilia not only answers user questions but can also perform various additional functions such as summarizing problems, reading user history, and providing initial suggestions using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques.

What sets Emilia AI apart from similar applications is its entirely open-source nature. The LLM model, dataset, as well as Unity and Python source codes will all be shared openly for future research. Moreover, the main focus of Emilia AI is on supporting adolescent mental health. “We position this AI as first aid. If a user shows more serious symptoms, they will be directed immediately to a psychologist,” said Rafli Raihan Pramudya.

Currently, the team is also collaborating with Kurrota Aini, a psychology lecturer from Universitas Trunojoyo Madura, to set boundaries and validate appropriate psychological content. In addition, the application’s interface continues to be developed. Malvin Leonardo Hartanto added, “We designed Emilia AI’s UI to be interactive. Many testers requested a three-dimensional version. If the model is small, it can be accessed via augmented reality on mobile phones. If larger, it will be suitable for VR with PC or cloud support.”

Image: ITS students using Emilia AI.

In addition to the main text-based feature, many users suggested that Emilia should also support voice-to-voice interaction, making conversations feel more natural. Although this feature has not yet been implemented due to time constraints and the limited availability of Indonesian-language text-to-speech models, the team has set it as a target for future development.

This innovation received full support from Hadziq Fabroyir, an Informatics Engineering lecturer at ITS. “We aim to create a research atmosphere that actively involves students. The ideas come from them; we only provide direction to make them more structured,” he explained.

Image: Emilia AI interface.

Looking ahead, the team plans to reduce the model size to make it more efficient and implementable on game platforms as well as augmented reality. With this, Emilia AI will not only be available as a two-dimensional application but can also be experienced through three-dimensional displays on mobile phones and even virtual reality. “The more open a research project is, the greater its impact. We hope that Emilia AI can become a stepping stone for future AI research beneficial to mental health,” concluded Andika.