AI video research company Tavus has launched what it said is the world’s first fully AI-powered replica of Santa Claus that can personally interact with millions of people. 

The company developed the Santa clone using its conversational video interface (CVI) technology released in August.

Tavus said its CVI technology is the world’s fastest with less than one second of latency between utterances, as well as the only end-to-end technology that deploys easily without any deep end work.

Its newly developed ‘hyper-realistic’ Santa can see, hear and respond to people in 30 different languages in real-time through video. Those interacting with the AI can ask it questions such as what’s his favorite Christmas movie or tell him their secret wish list or test his knowledge on holiday trivia or merely push the conversation into unexpected topics for hilarious results, according to the company. 

The AI Santa was developed by Tavus to demonstrate its CVI technology and so developers could explore how its APIs power real-time interactions and hyper-realistic video interfaces.  As well as to show ‘how technology can bring people together in magical, meaningful ways,’ the company said.

Developers can build their own digital twin experiences or integrate the CVI API into projects across industries including healthcare, education and customer service using a repository on GitHub. 

Tavus said developers in the creator economy, education, eCommerce and sales are already building with the technology. 

For example, its customer, Delphi, a personalized mentorship and education platform, announced a ‘groundbreaking’ video clone feature that allowed real-time video interactions with digital clones of creators, experts, coaches and executives, essentially providing a personal mentor on demand.

“There are a lot of components within a conversation. It’s incredibly complicated for an AI system to power a digital clone that can carry on a natural, live conversation over video,” said Dara Ladjevardian, co-founder and CEO of Delphi. 

Ladjevardian said that Delphi chose to partner with Tavus because its technology delivered an ‘incredibly realistic interactive experience’ that is critical to ‘deliver authentic and credible personalized mentorship experiences with expert clones.’ 

Tavus said its technology can also be used to build AI Agents with a face, voice, warmth and humanity for customer support agents, digital sales assistants, personal assistants and technical co-pilots across industries including eCommerce, government services, education, software and entertainment, particularly in places where leveraging humans is not feasible today.

In March Tavus also launched a digital replica model called Phoenix, and video generation on its developer platform. 

This article first appeared in IoT World Today's sister publication AI Business.

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