Telstra revives 'Free Calls to Santa' using Google Cloud AI and Gemini for live Santa conversations
Summary
Google’s Australia blog reports that Telstra’s "Free Calls to Santa" hotline is back, letting children dial a special code from more than 14,000 payphones across Australia to speak with an AI-powered Santa. Behind the scenes, the experience uses Google Cloud’s Customer Engagement Suite and Gemini with a custom Santa voice plus strong guardrails and prompt design to generate unique, real‑time and age‑appropriate conversations, illustrating a playful but large-scale deployment of generative AI in consumer telecom services.
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