Alisa, a virtual reality assistant developed by Russia’s tech giant Yandex, has been nominated to become the next president of Russia by thousands of supporters across the country.

The favorite for elections scheduled for March 2018, President Vladimir Putin, announced his candidacy on Wednesday. Putin is seeking a fourth term in office which would extend his tenure into 2024.



Other contenders for the presidency will likely include familiar political figures from the pro-Kremlin Communist Party and the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, as well as new faces such as the former reality TV star Ksenia Sobchak and the business-oriented Party of Growth leader Boris Titov.

Anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, another contender, has headed a series of campaign events across Russian this year despite a fraud conviction which bars him from running



It appears they will now be challenged by Alisa’s progressive promise to bring "the political system of the future, built exclusively on rational decisions made on the basis of clear algorithms,” the Lenta news website reported.

