Experience AI magic this holiday season! Chat with Santa, create festive videos, design greeting cards, and explore advanced features with ChatGPT and beyond.
’Tis the season to be jolly as ChatGPT-maker OpenAI releases a bounty of exciting new AI features to surprise and delight users throughout the holidays.
Chat with Santa AI
ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice feature just got much merrier with the introduction of “Santa Mode,” which enables users to chat with the big man himself. Now, you can tell Santa what you want for the holidays, listen to reindeer adventures as he drops off toys at destinations worldwide, and ask about anything regarding life at the North Pole—or across the internet.
To activate, tap the microphone icon on the bottom right of the mobile app, then the voice picker in the upper right, and toggle to “Santa: Merry and Bright.” Touch the snowflake to start speaking, and sleigh bells will ring as Santa greets you with a jovial “Ho Ho Ho.”
You can also call 1-800-CHATGPT to talk with ChatGPT for 15 minutes a month for free. While it’s not Santa who answers, the female voice is happy to put on her best Santa persona when prompted.
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Play AI Holiday Games
Just two years since its viral launch, ChatGPT has racked up more than 300 million weekly active users and is the only consumer-facing mobile app with a multimodal chatbot live on the internet. It even boasts an agentic Santa capable of determining whether subscribers have been naughty or nice.
Once Vision and Screen Share are turned on in the mobile app, users can get feedback on their appearance, movements, surroundings, and even what’s happening in apps on their phones.
OpenAI demoed this feature as part of its “12 Days of OpenAI” celebration, where Chief Product Officer Kevin Weil introduced ChatGPT to his team members and asked it to recall who was wearing reindeer ears and who donned a Santa hat. It’s a fun guessing game to try at home!
But the utility goes beyond mere play. ChatGPT’s vision capabilities enable Santa to help holidaymakers in countless ways, from crafting the perfect festive feast to solving holiday hiccups. Turn on the camera by selecting the video icon in the lower-right bar on the app, and Santa can guide you through baking cookies or mixing mistletoe mocktails. With screen share, you can even show Santa something on your phone—like a text from an unexpected holiday guest—and he’ll help you craft the perfect reply.
Make AI Christmas Movies
If your favorite holiday pastime is watching festive rom-coms, OpenAI’s text-to-video generator, Sora, is now available at Sora.com. It lets users create up to 50 five-to-ten-second videos (480p–720p) each month for free, with unlimited access for ChatGPT Plus subscribers through the holidays.
A simple prompt like “an orange cat pastry chef baking a cake in a holiday-themed kitchen” can produce an adorable clip like the Festive Feline Baker. While text generation in videos still has room to improve—evident in some garbled captions—the technology is evolving rapidly.
Other tools to explore include Midjourney, Runway, and Synthesia.
Create AI Greeting Cards
Want to send personalized holiday cheer? Ask ChatGPT to design a festive greeting card using prompts like “Make an image of a reindeer and gingerbread man sledding through a winter wonderland.”
You can even upload a photo via the app and ask ChatGPT to generate a similar image. Thanks to multimodal capabilities, DALL-E renders these festive images in the chat—free for all users in normal voice mode.
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Join AI Podcasts and More
Even though ChatGPT may have “won Christmas,” competitors have their own holiday tricks up their sleeves.
- Google’s Gemini 2.0 offers Veo 2 for advanced video generation and an Interactive Mode in NotebookLM, inviting users to call into AI-hosted podcasts with questions about uploaded sources.
- Anthropic’s Claude spins tales, crafts games, and helps with holiday planning.
- Elon Musk’s Grok analyzes social media posts and the web, complete with vision capabilities to assist with tasks like identifying fridge ingredients for a festive banquet.
Amazon’s Rufus, a shopping AI named after a beloved company dog, fetches answers about its vast inventory and offers holiday tips like these:
- Practice portion control at parties.
- Stay hydrated and active.
- Manage stress and get enough sleep.
While Rufus doesn’t yet “speak,” if he could, his answers might sound like “Woof, woof!”
Closing
From chatting with Santa to making holiday movies, OpenAI and its competitors are redefining how we celebrate. This season, let AI add a touch of magic to your festivities!
