At COP28 in Dubai, world leaders, delegates, and activists stepped up to an AI installation and spoke directly with Mother Nature. Each climate commitment they shared became a unique generative artwork in real time, and together the artworks formed a living record of the world's collective pledge to the planet.
The Brief
COP28 is the world's most significant annual gathering on climate, attended by heads of state, scientists, activists, and business leaders from across the globe. The brief was to create a participatory installation that honoured the gravity of the moment and made attendees part of the climate conversation.
The Challenge
Most event installations at summits of this scale are passive: impressive visuals, information displays, branded environments. The opportunity here was to build something that required human participation and, in return, turned individual climate intent into collective, visible action. The challenge was doing that at scale, in multiple languages, with a hugely diverse audience, while maintaining the emotional weight the subject demanded.
The Approach
The Tree of Life was conceived as a living AI installation, a physical structure at the heart of the COP28 venue that invited participants into a conversation. Powered by a large language model, the installation embodied Mother Nature as an AI persona: wise, urgent, and engaged with each participant's commitments.
Participants approached the installation and spoke their climate pledge directly to Mother Nature: what they committed to change, what they would protect, what they would sacrifice. The AI responded in kind. It engaged, affirmed, and gently challenged each participant, so every interaction worked as a two-way dialogue.
Each pledge was then processed through a generative art system, which created a unique AI-curated artwork based on the language, themes, and emotional register of the participant's commitment. These artworks became part of a growing digital mosaic, displayed continuously throughout the event as a living visual record of the summit's collective response to the climate crisis.
The Output
Over the course of COP28, thousands of participants engaged with the Tree of Life, from world leaders to young climate activists. The installation generated hundreds of unique artworks, each representing a real human commitment, and the growing mosaic became a visual artefact of the conference.
Frequently asked questions
What was the Tree of Life installation at COP28?
Tree of Life was an interactive AI installation at COP28 in Dubai in 2023, built for COP28 UAE with INVNT. A physical structure at the heart of the venue invited world leaders, delegates and activists to speak their climate commitments aloud. Each pledge was turned into a unique generative artwork in real time, building a living record of the summit's collective intent.
How did the AI conversation work?
The installation was powered by a large language model that embodied Mother Nature as an AI persona: wise, urgent and engaged with each participant's commitment. Rather than reading an information display, attendees entered a conversation, and what they said became the input for the artwork they received.
What made it difficult to build?
Scale and range. The installation had to work across multiple languages for a hugely diverse audience of heads of state, scientists, activists and business leaders, handle thousands of participants, and hold the emotional weight the subject demanded. Most installations at summits of this size are passive by comparison: visuals, displays and branded environments that ask nothing of the viewer.
What was Kurt Loy's role?
Creative Technology Lead on the project, which was delivered for COP28 UAE in partnership with INVNT.
Built withLarge Language Models · Generative AI Art · Real-Time Image Generation · Conversational AI · Multilingual NLP · Physical Installation Design
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