Alina Katiliute

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I’d say I was quite late to start using gen AI. I was curious about it but nothing more. I remember seeing my friends asking chatGPT for things instead of googling them. So eventually I started doing that too. Since then gen AI has become an important source of information but also a guide to improve my productivity.

First of all, gen AI helps me with panning my days to ensure I have enough time for all the work/ study related and personal tasks. I use it to create study timelines for university subjects by giving it deadlines and topics I need to study. I also use it for planning my workouts at the gym as well as my weekly meals to ensure I can reach my fitness goals.

Moreover, when I took a gap year between my Bachelor and Master studies to travel around Asia, AI helped me a lot with that as well. It has been very helpful in creating travel itineraries for different countries taking my time frame, interests and my budget into account. For example, when I went to the Philippines I wasn’t sure which places to go to as there are over 7.5 thousand islands. So I used gen AI to help me narrow it down. I specified my budget, the fact that I had two months in the country, that I was very interested in scuba diving and that I wanted to meet other young travellers. In a couple of seconds I had a complete itinerary of islands to visit that fit my exact criteria. In the end, the Philippines became one of my favourite destinations of the trip and it took no time to create a perfect plan for it.

For me, AI has become something like a personal assistant. It helps me to structure my day, helps to achieve my goals, both academic and personal, and saves my time. It allows me to focus on things that are actually important for me.

I think AI doesn’t replace us but rather allows us to multiply our productivity and enrich our lives.

5/5 (2) Imagine not needing a wallet or a phone to make a purchase. Imagine that all you need is your smile. Sounds unrealistic, strange, scary… Probably all of it. But also pretty cool!

Nowadays, we’re used to mobile banking, contactless payment and online shopping. But Sberbank (Russia’s largest bank) has gone further and now you can pay with just your smile. The system is called “Smile to Pay” and it uses facial recognition to process payments where a person smiling confirms the payment. It’s fast and very convenient for the customers (РБК, 2025).

Launched in 2023 as a response to Apple Pay and Google Pay leaving the Russian market, this technology connects a unique ID to a customer’s biometrics data. This ID is also linked to the customer’s bank account (Bikker, 2025). At first it was only Sberbank’s customers who could use Smile to Pay but now it’s available to all banks across Russia. Like many technologies, it first rolled out in the major Russian cities such as Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk. Now, in 2025, it has expanded to most regions of Russia (GFCN, 2025). It has gained popularity among customers because of its convenience but also because Sberbank introduced loyalty programs like receiving cashback. The benefits for the business include faster processing time, less queues and less customers leaving without purchases due to a forgotten phone or a wallet (РБК, 2025).

Some IT experts, however, do not recommend using this technology because this biometrics data is easier to fake with just a photo and some gen AI. The data is less secure than finger prints or retina scans (Бояршина, 2023). Additionally, it’s hard to know how much we can trust the Russian government to have biometrics of its citizens. Even if the bank states that the data is stored securely and cannot be stolen, the government still has access to it. In a country where basically everything is controlled, it’s easy to imagine that your smile will be more than just a payment method but also a tool for surveillance.

Personally I’m not comfortable using it right now because I don’t want to give the Russian government more ways to track where and when I go. However, this technology is slowly being adopted in other countries too, for example, China and the US are both adopting Smile to Pay into their services (Bikker, 2025 & Morgan, 2024). Does that mean that it is the future and inevitably it’s going to become a standard payment method across the world? I don’t know…

In the end, Smile to Pay goes beyond a simple innovation. It offers a vision of the future where payments are easy and high-tech. But it’s also a reminder that even exciting new technologies can have a dark side.

SOURCES:
Bikker, G. (2025). Sberbank ‘Smile-to-Pay’ service goes viral as biometric payment installations pass one million milestone. TechBullion. https://techbullion.com/sberbank-smile-to-pay-service-goes-viral-as-biometric-payment-installations-pass-one-million-milestone/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Global Fact-Checking Network (GFCN). (2025, May 5). Smile-to-pay service in Russia — Fake or Real? Global Fact-Сhecking Network. https://globalfactchecking.com/smile-to-pay-service-in-russia-fake-or-real/
Morgan, J. (2024). Pay by Smile: In-Store biometric payments in the U.S. | J.P. Morgan. https://www.jpmorgan.com/insights/payments/payment-trends/in-store-biometric-payments
Бояршина, А. (2023). Хотите расплачиваться на кассе улыбкой? IT-эксперт не советует так делать. Secret Firmy. https://secretmag.ru/zhizn/khotite-rasplachivatsya-na-kasse-ulybkoi-it-ekspert-ne-sovetuet-tak-delat-07-08-2023.htm
Что такое «Оплата улыбкой»: как работает и как ее подключить. (n.d.). РБК Инвестиции. https://www.rbc.ru/quote/news/article/67bb37ff9a79475c2cd1acc8

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