Zurich researchers link AI with spirituality studies
The AI system supports grounded research without replacing original sources.
Researchers at the University of Zurich have received a Postdoc Team Award for SpiritRAG, an AI system designed to analyse religion and spirituality in United Nations documents. The interdisciplinary project brings together expertise from Zurich across computer science, linguistics, education and spiritual care.
SpiritRAG connects large language models with more than 7,500 UN texts, allowing users in Zurich and beyond to ask context sensitive questions grounded in original sources. The system addresses challenges where meaning varies across cultures, history and political settings.
The Zurich based team presented SpiritRAG at EMNLP 2025 in Suzhou, China, and later at the AI+X Summit in Zurich. Interest from organisations outside Zurich highlights demand for transparent AI tools supporting research and policy analysis.
Designed as open source infrastructure, SpiritRAG allows deployment with different datasets while using limited resources. Researchers in Zurich say the approach supports responsible AI use in complex domains where accuracy and context remain critical.
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