In partnership with
Olympics
🏅 AI is Transforming the 2026 Winter Olympics
The Milano Cortina Winter Olympics (happening right now through Feb 22) is the most AI-integrated Games in history. Here's what's different this year:
Real-Time 360 Replay
AI-powered cameras create 3D reconstructions of athletes mid-air in 15-20 seconds. Picture this: a figure skater lands a quad jump, and within seconds, broadcasters show a "Matrix-style" freeze-and-rotate replay from angles where no physical camera exists. The MUCAR system (built by Alibaba Cloud and Olympic Broadcasting Services) is live across 14 venues. Watch it on Peacock, NBC, USA Network, or your local broadcaster.
AI Judging Support
Figure skating (rotation counting), ski jumping (height/angles), halfpipe/big air scoring
Automatic Media Description (AMD): Powered by Alibaba's Qwen LLM, generates descriptions of Olympic moments
Sustainability
AI monitors energy consumption across venues in real-time
The Olympic AI Agenda
In April 2024, and the IOC launched the Olympic AI Agenda, a comprehensive framework for how AI should be used in sports. There were Five focus areas:
Supporting athletes and fair competition
Equal access to the breakthrough benefits of AI (a rural
Sustainability (AI monitors energy consumption across venues in real-time)
Fan engagement (personalized content, real-time stats)
Operational efficiency
AI change generally starts with efficiency, but the real ROI comes when it completely transforms customer experience.
DID YOU KNOW?
You can book Astrid for a Keynote for your organization on AI Tranformation
My Keynotes are fun, educational AND inspiring. They are Goal-oriented, actionable, and tailored to your industry.
Great for Women’s Groups, Enterprise, Retreats, and more. Learn more at AstridsAITips.com, or pick a date below!
The Industry Minute
Peter Steinberger joins OpenAI
OpenClaw will continue to be open source through a foundation
Peter Steinberger, creator of the viral open-source AI agent framework OpenClaw, officially joined OpenAI this weekend. Sam Altman said, “ Peter will drive the next generation of personal agents." OpenClaw will become a foundation and stay open source.
Steinberger chose to join OpenAI over Meta, with OpenAI committing to keep OpenClaw open source through a foundation.
Executive Take: Do you think Peter Steinberger used his own agent to talk through the pros and cons of joining OpenAI?
What types of questions do you think he asked?
Here are some of the high level questions YOU could prompt in AI when faced with major business decisions such as this one:
"What am I optimizing for: impact, wealth, control, or legacy?"
"In 10 years, which choice will I regret NOT making?"
"What's the worst-case scenario for each path, and can I live with it?"
"If I choose independence, what resources am I betting I can build myself? If I join, what am I betting they can't take away from me?"
"What does 'winning' actually look like in each scenario, knowing what I value most?"
Astrid's Take: Opensource is King, and Top Secret building is becoming a competitive disadvantage.
Better prompts. Better AI output.
AI gets smarter when your input is complete. Wispr Flow helps you think out loud and capture full context by voice, then turns that speech into a clean, structured prompt you can paste into ChatGPT, Claude, or any assistant. No more chopping up thoughts into typed paragraphs. Preserve constraints, examples, edge cases, and tone by speaking them once. The result is faster iteration, more precise outputs, and less time re-prompting. Try Wispr Flow for AI or see a 30-second demo.
A WORD ABOUT OUR SPONSORS- Most of our sponsors I have personally tested, and a few that are not have earned serious credibility in the AI professional world, and therefore meet my standards for what I'd recommend to executive women building an AI powered work and life. When you click inside these ads, we might earn a commission. Don’t hesitate to click as it helps us produce this newsletter! You're support means a lot and I look forward to bringing you more great content while exploring tools that could transform your business.
It’s a Win-win! 🏆
SaaS is Dead
The $285 Billion Wake-Up Call
What happened
Friday, Jan 31, 2026: Anthropic released Claude Cowork plugins for legal, finance, sales, marketing
Tuesday, Feb 3, 2026: Software/Tech stocks in these sectors CRATERED
Software ETF down 5.69% (worst day since April 2025)
Thomson Reuters down 15.83% (biggest single-day drop EVER)
LegalZoom down 19.68%
RELX (LexisNexis) down 14%
$285 billion wiped out
Thursday, Feb 5, 2026: Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.6, stocks fell AGAIN
FactSet down 9.1%
S&P Global down 4.2%
The dip hit:Software companies (enterprise SaaS)
Legal tech companies (LegalZoom, CS Disco)
Data/information services (Thomson Reuters, RELX, FactSet)
WHY it happened: Anthropic shifted from offering AI models to building plugins that do the work software companies sell. Legal research, financial analysis, document review—Claude Cowork can now do what LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters, and specialized SaaS tools charge thousands for.
What’s the Lesson in all this? The threat isn't AI replacing your employees, it's AI replacing YOUR PRODUCT. If your business model is "we have proprietary software that does X," and AI can now do X for $20/month, you better be using AI to brainstorm how to stay competitive.
LIDAR TECH and AI
Google Turns the Smartphone Into a Biomechanics Lab
Google DeepMind x U.S. Ski & Snowboard
On February 5, 2026, U.S. Ski & Snowboard and Google announced an industry-first AI video-analysis tool that turns smartphones into high-precision motion capture sensors. Using Google DeepMind's spatial intelligence and Gemini's multimodal capabilities, the platform maps an athlete's body in 3D from standard video, even through bulky winter gear, without sensors or specialized suits.
Here's how it works: Athletes film their tricks with a smartphone. The AI analyzes the footage in minutes, often before they finish the next chairlift ride. Then coaches can ask questions in plain English, like "Based on that airtime, how much faster did the rider need to spin to complete the rotation?" The AI estimates angular velocity and provides data-backed answers.
Key insight: Traditional motion-capture requires athletes to wear specialized suits covered in sensors, which are impractical for outdoor training and often fail in sub-zero, high-velocity conditions. This tool eliminates all that hassle.
Executive Eye: Google didn't just build a tool for Olympians. They built a blueprint for democratizing expertise. As Oliver Parker, VP of Global Generative AI at Google Cloud, put it: "If we can solve for the world's best athletes in the most extreme conditions, we can help anyone from a physical therapy patient to an amateur golfer improve their games."
Astrid's Take:
This is AI doing what it does best: making elite-level analysis accessible at scale. Olympic coaches get biomechanics feedback in real time. Physical therapists can track patient recovery with more precision. Golf instructors can analyze swings frame-by-frame. AI doesn't replace expertise, it gives you the tools to become the best at your job.
⚠️ AI SAFETY MINUTE: VOICE CLONING SCAMS TARGET THE C-SUITE
AI voice cloning has gone from science fiction to boardroom threat. Scammers now use 3-5 seconds of audio (from earnings calls, conference panels, LinkedIn videos) to create convincing deepfakes of executives authorizing wire transfers or sharing sensitive information.
Recent incidents: CFOs receiving "calls from the CEO" requesting urgent transfers. IT teams getting "emergency requests" from leadership to reset credentials. Board members targeted with fake family emergency calls.
Your defense protocol:
Establish verbal verification codes for financial requests over $10K
Never authorize wire transfers via phone/voicemail alone
Train your EA and finance team: if it sounds urgent, it probably isn't legitimate
Use video calls for high-stakes approvals (deepfake video is harder to fake in real-time)
The 30-second rule: Any unexpected call requesting money or credentials gets hung up and called back on a known number. No exceptions.
The technology is available to anyone with $20 and basic tech skills. Create your internal policies for high stakes calls.
Why Wispr Flow Is Different Than Just Voice Dictation
Wispr Flow is not just voice dictation
It's built for people who type a lot. You speak naturally (ums, ahs, tangents included, don’t bother re-recording) and Wispr Flow cleans it up while you talk. It fixes your grammar and lets you edit by voice without stopping.Wispr Flow:
Cleans up your speech as you go (removes "ums," fixes grammar)
Edit with voice commands while dictating ("scratch that," "new paragraph")
Understands context across your whole message
Built for emails, reports, long documents
Here's what that looks like:
You're writing an email and say: "Hey Sarah, um, wanted to follow up on, wait, scratch that, I wanted to check in on the Q3 projections you mentioned in yesterday's meeting."Your phone's microphone gives you: "Hey Sarah um wanted to follow up on wait scratch that I wanted to check in on the Q3 projections you mentioned in yesterday's meeting."
Wispr Flow gives you: "Hey Sarah, I wanted to check in on the Q3 projections you mentioned in yesterday's meeting.".
Power Prompt: Build a Competitor Intelligence Agent in 60 Seconds
Copy this into Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini to create a competitor monitoring agent. This works inside Zapier Agent, Make.com, or if you have OpenClaw set up, too.
For Beginners: If you don’t have an agent yet, just Copy/Paste this prompt into ChatGPT whenever you need it. Save it as a Skill inside Claude, or a project.
You are my competitive intelligence agent. Every week, I need you to track [COMPETITOR NAME].
Here's what I need you to monitor:
- Product launches or updates
- Pricing changes
- Executive hires or departures
- Funding announcements
- Customer wins they announce publicly
- Major partnerships
Search the web for any updates from the past 7 days. Format your findings like this:
**What Changed:**
[Bullet list of actual changes]
**What It Means:**
[One-sentence analysis of why this matters to our strategy]
**Source Links:**
[URLs so I can dig deeper if needed]
Start with this week's intel on [COMPETITOR NAME].
Why this works:
You're not just asking for a search. You're teaching your AI what matters to YOU and how to deliver it in a format you can actually use. Set this up once in Zapier Agents or Make.com to run automatically every Monday morning, and you'll never miss a competitor move.
Pro tip:
Start with one competitor. Once it's working, clone the agent for your top 3 competitors.
