After signing up for a free account, users can interact with AI Santa via text, phone, or video chat. Users can tell AI Santa what they want for Christmas, share their holiday plans, and find out if they\u2019re on the naughty or nice list.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This year, the company debuted an improved version of AI Santa, designed to be more expressive and emotionally aware. Santa is now a \u201cTavus PAL,\u201d the company\u2019s name for its real-time AI agents that are built to see, hear, respond, and appear human.<\/p>\n
AI Santa can now see users\u2019 expressions and gestures and respond to them. It also remembers users\u2019 conversations and interests, creating a more personalized experience. Notably, it now can take actions of its own, including searching the web for present ideas or even perform everyday tasks like drafting emails.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/santapostcard-Tavus.png\")
Image Credits:Tavus<\/p>\n
During testing, the conversation with AI Santa was engaging for the most part. When we mentioned wanting a new PlayStation for Christmas, Santa followed up with questions about our favorite video games, showing knowledge of specific titles like Baldur\u2019s Gate 3. It also smiled back when we did. (We didn\u2019t like that part very much, but maybe others will.)<\/p>\n
Users appear to be enjoying the improved experience so far. Founder and CEO Hassaan Raza said that many people are engaging with the platform frequently, spending hours chatting with AI Santa and often reaching their daily limits.<\/p>\n
Techcrunch event<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year\u2019s AI Santa drew millions of hits, and we\u2019re on pace to surpass that by a wide margin as Christmas approaches,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n
While this level of engagement marks a milestone for Tavus, it also raises questions about the impact of such interactions, especially for young children. Children may struggle to distinguish between AI and a real person. Spending hours in conversation with an AI has already been linked to negative effects in adults, making the potential effects on children who strongly believe in Santa a concern for some parents.<\/p>\n
During our testing, there were subtle cues that the AI Santa does yet appear fully human-like, such as long pauses and a flat voice. We also found that if a user were to question whether it\u2019s real, the programmed response was: \u201cI\u2019m an AI Santa powered by Tavus\u2019 magic and technology. I might not be the physical Santa, but I\u2019ve got the spirit and the cheer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, the experience launches amid growing concerns about AI\u2019s effects on young users. There have been reports<\/a> linking chatbot interactions to serious harm, including cases where chatbots were implicated in the suicide deaths<\/a> of teenagers. Character.AI removed<\/a> access to its chatbots for users under 18 in October.\u00a0<\/p>\n Raza emphasized that the AI Santa experience is designed for families to enjoy together, with safety measures in place to ensure appropriate interactions. Safety features, such as content filters, have been implemented to maintain family-friendly discussions.\u00a0<\/p>\n In certain situations, conversations can be terminated, and users are directed to mental health resources if necessary.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe vast majority of interactions have been family-friendly and true to the Santa experience,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Additionally, when asked about data collection, Raza said the company \u201ccollects logs, session timestamps, metadata, and other information users choose to share during their chats. This data is used to provide and maintain a safe experience, and users can request data deletion at any point in time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new helper has arrived at the North Pole in recent years: AI. Tavus, the AI startup that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,28723,343,344,85,46,125],"class_list":["post-177938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-ai-chatbot","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/santaDesktop.png\")
Image Credits:Tavus<\/p>\n