Tavus creates a new artificial intelligence Santa Claus santa.tavus.io This way you can have a so-called “shockingly real” conversation with Santa without having to go to the mall to meet him. AI Santa is backed by Y Combinator, Sequoia Capital and Peter Thiel. While the calls are free, there’s definitely a monetization plan behind this computerized Santa, and it does require your email address. However, the AI Santa uses Tavus’ Conversational Video Interface (CVI), and it’s very observant – it even commented on the items in my room.
Even though I’m old enough to have no problem playing Santa in the makeup department, I thoroughly enjoyed the heartwarming audience with the artificially intelligent Santa Claus. On this new seasonal interactive website, you can chat with an AI Santa, tell him what you want for Christmas, and share some seasonal joy.
Sadly, my live video chat with the jolly artificially intelligent Santa Claus went nowhere. Despite achieving the perfect naughty-to-nice ratio, the call logs the elves emailed me said I wished for nothing… which, of course, wasn’t true. As a loyal Tom Hardware hunter, I wanted a new computer! Did Santa Claus drink too much sherry and forget my wish? Is he too nervous to buy me a new computer, or is this another example of artificial intelligence technology being unreliable?
If you are curious enough, click on the Artificial Intelligence Santa link and you will be greeted by a carefully crafted classic Santa Claus in full costume. He sits in front of a roaring fire in the postcard-perfect Christmas lounge, eagerly waiting for you to click the “Talk to Santa” button.
Once clicked, you’ll 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 video calls with me for training or other purposes? No terms and conditions, fine print or anything like that was found on the homepage.
Santa’s speech begins by asking you to “Tell me your Christmas wish – and I’ll tell you if you’re naughty or nice.” He then talks about your wish. The chat experience was natural and he smartly asked me what I wanted for Christmas.
To secure my spot on the nice guy list and avoid any hint of naughtiness, I used my best manners during the chat, which seemed to earn me some “good points.” If you also want to ensure a naughty-to-friendly ratio, you can easily attract Santa by skipping mince pies and sherry on Christmas Eve. Constantly saying “Merry Christmas,” “Holidays greetings,” etc. also seems to boost my “friendliness” energy bar.
By the end of our chat, I was feeling a warm feeling of Christmas, or whatever it’s called. I can’t remember the last time I talked to Santa, but this artificially intelligent Santa seemed very personable, and as a bonus, I didn’t have to sit on his lap. The transcripts that Santa’s elves sent via email seemed to belie my PC hardware aspirations. However, this email told me that I had “kicked it off my good list…” [and] Maybe, just maybe, that wish list will come true.
Take It Seriously – Sales Conversational Video Interface (CVI)
AI Santa’s underlying technology includes an API that can understand multi-modal input, provide silent frame segmentation and advanced 3D rendering, provide sentiment analysis, and support 30 languages.
Tavus says this is basically a festive showcase of its APIs, “which are already in production use in industries such as healthcare, education, recruiting, and customer support.” To demonstrate its flexibility, we invite you to check it out via the AI Santa website links to fork, deploy and customize the demo.