A common piece of feedback that I've read on the forums (and happen to agree with) is that the AI opponents in this game aren't engaging to interact with and lack personality, in part because the cultures are evolving constantly throughout the game. One can't simply say "I've gotta keep an eye on Egypt this game" because they're going to be a different culture soon. Two simple ideas to spice up the interactions with the AI:

1. Rather than having a colored icon to represent each opponent in the upper left, use the portraits (the ones from the home screen of the Lucy OpenDev) so that we have a face to look at instead of a color and a symbol. Outline that portrait in the color of that AI. This makes the player feel like they're really competing against someone. 
2. Stop having the game refer to the players (AI and human) as "Empire 0", etc. Refer to them by the names of the avatars.