If you've been riding the wave of Bitcoin's latest surge or watching your crypto wallet grow, the holidays might feel like the perfect time to turn those gains into memorable gifts.
But as any seasoned gifter knows, a big price tag doesn't always guarantee a big impression.
That's where SantaBot -- our AI agent experiment designed to help you step up your gift-giving game -- can help.
The project started with a simple question: Could AI decode personal chat messages to suggest more meaningful presents to your friends and loved ones? As it turns out, it can.
Designed to take the guesswork out of giving, SantaBot digs through conversation histories to build detailed personality profiles, gathering insights about their habits, preferences, and other aspects.
It even maps out Myers-Briggs and Enneagram personality types based on how people talk to each other.
The tool provides creative personalization ideas to make each gift truly unique.
For instance, you could gift your son a baseball bat engraved with his uniform number and initials or surprise your wife with a smartwatch featuring straps in her favorite color. These small, thoughtful touches can make a big impact.
Before giving my bot to the world, I decided to give it a try. I uploaded my WhatsApp conversation with my wife and asked her to tell me the best gifts I could give her.
SantaBot psychoanalyzed my wife's WhatsApp messages, and folks, we've got ourselves a certified Type 2 personality (Helper, Giver) with a major love for desserts and fitness.
According to the bot, she's what personality experts call an ESFJ (Extraverted, Sensing, Feeling, Judging), basically someone who'd organize a group hug and then make sure everyone filled out a satisfaction survey afterward.
The personality analysis shows she ranks high in agreeableness and extraversion, moderate in neuroticism (their words, not mine -- I value my life), and has a practical streak that somehow doesn't apply to transportation choices.
The bot didn't just stop at basic personality traits. It went full CIA analyst on our conversations, noting some interesting things like her use of "Te quiero mucho mi flaquito" (translation: "I love you, my skinny one") to her appreciation for little details instead of luxurious things.
SantaBot even picked up on her Uber addiction faster than our credit card company.
It painted a picture of someone who's health-conscious but won't walk two blocks if there's a car service available -- which is not 100% but is easy to infer if the only thing you know about her is our conversation history.
Now, for the gift suggestions, these were some of the most exciting picks.:
It also recommended some funny gift ideas, including a "Drama Queen Survival Kit" (which she would hate), a "Custom Emoji Pillow" (which she would love) and a personalized apron with a nickname like "Chef Sass Master"
I compared SantaBot head-to-head against regular ChatGPT to see how it stacked up.
The difference was clear -- while standard ChatGPT played it safe with generic suggestions, our specialized version picked up on subtle hints.
It's not like its suggestions were useless, rather than less personal.
To use our tool, you must upload your conversation history and interact with the model, asking for recommendations.
You can then go with follow-up questions, asking for more suggestions, personalization ideas, providing more contextual or personalized information, etc. The more information the AI handles, the better the results should be.
Some good starting prompts can be as simple as "Please carefully analyze this conversation and tell me what presents she/he would like" to things as complex as "What are the best presents I could give to a person with an ENFP type of personality."
You can also play with the tool and iterate with it. Once it provides a reply, you can ask for more suggestions, ask for funnier recommendations, ask for more romantic gift recommendations, etc. It all depends on your intentions and expectations.
Exporting chats is pretty straightforward, depending on which messaging app you use.
WhatsApp users can export chats from the app, though iMessage folks need to use tools like iMazing to get their conversation data. Similar options exist for Telegram, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok users. Just google them.
Also, ensure you only upload text conversations, so export your data without photos, voice notes, or documents.
This, of course, means there are privacy concerns that you should address. SantaBot requires access to those conversations to create its detailed profiles.
Sharing such personal data without permission could be unethical. The fix isn't perfect, but it works: Ask the other person for permission to use the conversation for an AI experiment. If they agree, you're good to go.
If you don't want to go that route, you can take other steps.
First, names should be anonymized in exported chats by replacing them with placeholders. For this, open your TXT file, select the option to edit and replace text (this will vary according to your text processor), and choose to change the name for the placeholder in every instance. Save that file and upload it to ChatGPT.
Second, ensure OpenAI cannot use that chat to train its models. For that, the first thing you can do is adjust your ChatGPT settings to disable memories. To do so, click on your profile picture in the top right corner of ChatGPT, go to settings, personalize it, and turn off "Memory."
Alternatively, you can click on "Manage" after your conversation is done and delete any memory that could be created mentioning your latest chat.
Additionally, you can prevent OpenAI from training its model with your conversation by blocking the capability of using your data -- which is allowed by default.
To change that, go to Settings, click on Data controls, and turn off the option "Improve the model for everyone." This sounds pretty, but in non-corpo language, it can be translated as "Let OpenAI use your conversations to train its models for free and probably charge you more once they get more powerful."
Overall, building GPTs and specialized agents can bring practical solutions to everyday challenges, like the art of gifting.
Our AI may surprise you with clever ideas that turn ordinary presents into unforgettable gestures so you can be as successful in your family reunions as you think you are trading crypto.
At the very least, when the presents miss the mark, you'll have something better to blame than your lack of creativity.
