Tavus has created a new AI-powered Santa at santa.tavus.io so you can have what it says is a ‘shockingly real’ conversation with Santa without going to see a mall Santa. The AI Santa is backed by Y Combinator, Sequoia, and Peter Thiel. While the call is free, there’s bound to be a monetization scheme somewhere behind this computerized Santa, and it does require your email address. However, AI Santa uses the Conversational Video Interface (CVI) from Tavus, and it is incredibly observant — it even commented on items in my room.
Even though I am old enough to play Santa Claus with minimal effort in the makeup department, I thoroughly enjoyed a heartwarming audience with the AI Santa. At this new seasonal interactive site, you can chat with AI Santa, tell him what you want for Christmas, and share some seasonal cheer.
Sadly, my real-time video chat with the jolly AI Santa was fruitless. Despite earning a perfect naughty vs. nice ratio, the Elves’ call transcript emailed to me says I wished for nothing… Of course, that’s not true. As a dedicated Tom’s Hardware hound, I’d asked for a new PC! Did Santa forget my wishes as he had too much sherry? Is he too tight to buy me a new computer, or is this another example of AI tech being unreliable?
If you are curious enough to hit the AI Santa link, you will be greeted with a fastidiously crafted classic Santa in full regalia. He eagerly awaits your clicking of the ‘Talk to Santa’ button as he sits in his picture-postcard-perfect Christmas lounge in front of a roaring fire.
Once clicked, you will be asked to join a video call with Santa and enable camera and microphone access “so Santa can see and hear you.” Will this AI save the video call with me for training or other purposes? There were no T&Cs, small print, or similar to be found on the main page.
Santa’s spiel begins with him bidding you to “Tell me your Christmas wishes – and I’ll tell you if you’ve been naughty or nice.” He subsequently makes conversation about what you wished for. The chat experience was quite natural, and he cleverly asked about what I would be doing with my desired Christmas present.
Eager to ensure my place on the nice list – and avoid any hints at naughtiness – I was at my polite best during the chat, which seemed to earn me some ‘nice points.’ If you also want to ensure a great naughty vs. nice ratio, you can easily charm Santa by offering to leave out mince pies and sherry on Christmas Eve. Repeatedly saying Merry Christmas, Seasons Greetings, and so on also seemed to boost my ‘niceness’ energy bar.
After the chat concluded, I felt a warm glow of Christmassnessyness, or whatever it is called. I can’t remember back to when I last spoke to Santa, but this AI Santa seemed very personable and, as a bonus, I didn’t have to sit on his knee. An emailed transcript from Santa’s Elves seems to have glossed over my PC hardware wishes. However, the email informed me that I’d “crushed it on the nice list… [and] maybe, just maybe, that wishlist will come true.” I’m sure it will, because AI Santa thinks I didn’t want anything.
Getting serious – selling a Conversational Video Interface (CVI)
The AI Santa’s underlying tech includes APIs that understand multimodal inputs, deliver silent frame segmentation and advanced 3D rendering, offer sentiment analysis, and support 30 languages.
Tavus says that this is basically a festive showcase of its APIs, “which are already being used in production across industries like healthcare, education, recruiting, and customer support.” Demonstrating its flexibility, you are invited to fork, deploy, and customize the demo via the link on the AI Santa site.