Children Ordered iPhones, Dogs, and Tangerines from Father Frost
The artificial intelligence from T-Bank processed over 522,000 calls from children wishing to receive toys, electronics, and pets for the New Year. The number of appeals increased sevenfold compared to the previous season.
Jan 27, 2026 0
Father Frost, a traditional Russian winter character, listens to children«s holiday wishes via an AI-powered phone service.
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Father Frost«s telephone service based on artificial intelligence from T-Bank received calls from children from December 18, 2025 to January 15, 2026. During this period, there were 522,000 appeals from 184,000 unique subscribers, which is more than seven times the figure from last year.
The total duration of conversations with the wizard was 950,000 minutes, equivalent to almost two years of continuous dialogue.
Analysis of requests showed that children most often asked for:
- games and toys — 31% of all wishes;
- electronic devices — 23%;
- pets — 10%;
- sports equipment — 8%;
- sweets — 7%.
Among toys, the most popular were cars (30% of requests in the category), dolls (13%), soft toys (11%), and construction sets (8%).
In the electronics segment, smartphones led, accounting for half of all applications. Moreover, in 70% of cases, children specifically named iPhones. Also on the list of desired gadgets were tablets, computers, laptops, and gaming consoles.
As for pets, for the second year in a row, the most requested animal remains the dog — it was mentioned in 66% of appeals. Children also wanted to get cats, horses, and hamsters.
From sports gifts, bicycles, skates, sleds, and scooters were most often ordered.
Almost all requests for «tasty» gifts (90%) concerned sweets. However, there were also more unusual wishes: for example, a new car, an apartment, or money.
Some children formulated truly large-scale desires. Among them were 100 million rubles (approximately $1 million at current rates), 10 kilograms of gold, 10 iPhone 17 Pro Max, as well as hundreds of kilograms of candies, tangerines, and pelmeni (Russian dumplings).
The kids did not forget about their parents. For their mothers, they wanted to give iPhones, shiny handbags, tasty salads, a plot with a house, two cars, and a new kitchen.
For their fathers, they most often wished for a big car, yachts, and new clothes.
The unique voice of Father Frost was created using VoiceKit technology, for which T-Bank engineers studied thousands of speech samples of the character from films and cartoons. The service is based on the large language model T-Pro and a new-generation v2v engine, which allows the system to quickly process sound and respond to the interlocutor«s remarks. Thanks to AI, Father Frost conducts a dialogue like a living person: clarifies New Year»s wishes, asks about hobbies, favorite films, and family traditions, and also praises for learned poems and songs.
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