MEET Astrid
Astrid Pilla, 7x Female Founder | AI Thought Leader | Former Healthcare CEO
Empowering women in leadership through AI
Hi! I’m Astrid and here’s a little bit about me, and why I’ve created this newsletter and community!
My first career was in healthcare! For over 15 years I co-founded and ran an Orthodontic practice in the Washington, DC area, specializing in braces behind the teeth. Since this is our CES edition, I thought it would be cool to mention!
We gained popularity with c-suite, pro-athletes, and media personalities because the tech, but of course we also served families. I spearheaded everything from operations to PR & marketing- HR and community & professional outreach, plus charitable giving. I have led or helped shape nearly every department, which gives me a unique perspective on how AI can transform each and every department within an organization. My goal is to bring you invaluable insights on AI, with a personal touch!
After a 180 career shift, it’s important to me that you know it’s possible!
So, if there is one message I’d like to give you today, it is this: You already have the necessary knowledge to get started in AI! Integrating AI simply means that you start engaging with it differently. Use what you know, and build on it.
Astrid's AI Tips for women 50+ is a call to action for all women, a bright light for those starting over, and a way to accelerate a business you’ve always wanted to begin. So bring along your mothers, sisters, friends and daughters. It is time for all women to rise together!
Hi! I’m Astrid! I’m so glad you’re here!
CES 2026 - Las Vegas Recap! A packed week of Media Days, Founder interviews, and Keynotes
Takeway: Every aspect of nearly every industry from production to marketing to hiring and beyond is focused on AI
Standing with the first ever French Delegation of Women Founders in Tech at CES 2026
with the group Girls & Tech!
CES GIRL & TECH | I was fortunate to receive an email from the co-founder of Girls & Tech, Gwenaëlle Bailly just before my arrival in Las Vegas, so naturally I said yes to interviews with the first-ever French delegation of Women in Tech from France at CES! (Check out the full interviews on our socials and on our Youtube Channel)
There were so many incredible companies being built. One of them, pleias, a startup co-founded by Dr. Anastasia Stasenko, was a company training copyright-compliant LLMs and SLMs that have less than 1B parameters. Why is this important? It means AI Agents running in private environments, with very little cost. It also means the ability to provide access to powerful LLMs on a device as simple as a Rasberry Pi to underserved populations with little to no internet access. In fact, Dr. Stasenko and her team have already deployed an AI Virtual Health Agent on Rasberry Pis to areas in Senegal with little to no internet, in partnership with Bibliothèque Sans Frontières (Library Without Borders). That’s AI for good we love to see!
The entire PleIAs LLM housed on a nostalgic floppy disc! Baguettotron!
This houses the same LLM deployed in Senegal on a
Rasberry Pi for areas with no internet connectivity
Astrid with Sonia Reis-Masclez, COO of obo-world which creates AI Agents for HR
My interview with Sonia Reis-Masclez was important to There were a few companies that I were truly interesting that I didn’t get a chance to do an interview with, but are worth mentioning:
Lara Gervaise, co-founder of Virtuosis AI which screens for health conditions depression, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, and respiratory disorders from a single 30-second voice recording!
Bénédicte Astier, founder of Allergen Alert with a device that rapidly detects Gluten in foods.
Ellena Andreolli, Founder of CLOVER, able to detect spiked drinks with a rapid test plus a preventive safety cover.
If any of our community would like to connect with these incredible women tech founders from France, do reach out! The power of networking in the world of tech and AI between all of us can be so powerful! I am committed to bringing women founders and women VCs together, and of course welcome supporters of women in tech!
Watch Full Interviews on our Youtube Channel!
Now, onto the AI Tech at CES!
Why this year marked an important shift.
This is my third year as an AI Industry Analyst at CES, and I am always exhilarated to see so many startups and global companies from all over the world come together to showcase everything going on in AI and tech right now, announcing their biggest innovations and products on a global scale. CES gives an unprecedented pulse on a wide range of nearly every industry which is why I commit to going each year, and this year it was clear that the shift in every industry is integrating AI into their products and platforms- AI Everywhere.
The buzzword on the show floor was PHYSICAL AI, meaning almost every physical product is now being built or conceived with some form of AI embedded at the concept stage, and this includes everyday products from your refrigerator and your dishwasher all the way to your hairdryer! Soon every device will have some kind of AI integration or app, and cross-device at least within the same family of products will be the norm.
Samsung’s AI Food Manager recognizes what you place inside your fridge, catalogs everything, and with the app creates shopping lists, suggested recipes, and more. Ever leave your fridge open by mistake? Just a quick voice command Voice command
"Shut the fridge door" is all you need.
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Now back to CES!
Sony and Honda announced a joint venture, Sony Honda Mobility (SHM) and partnered to build AFEELA, an electric AI powered vehicle with focus on AI assisted driving, Personal AI and entertainment.
Sony x Honda announce AFEELA, an AI and Entertainment focused vehicle with an AI personal assistant onboard rolling out in the US in Q4 2026
The AFEELA Media Bar on the rear: I am unsure if this was entirely well thought out LOL!
During a media-only press event, The LEGO Group announced the Lego Smart Brick coming out in three Star Wars themed sets, available for pre-order in March. Each set will come with a smart brick that can sense colors and movement, and are equipped with powerful gyroscope and accelerometers, plus RFID tags for each object to recognize what kind of sound to make. For example, the duck quacks when you move it, and you’ll know which car won the race since the winning car will light up! It also senses color and knows it’s flying in the air as a helicopter due to the tag, and makes airplane noises. Lego intentionally left AI out of the designs.
Three Lego x Star Wars Smart Play sets are already available for pre-order on their website, shipping March 1st.
The Smart Brick in the Helicopter Set has a gyroscope and an accelerometer, and a smart RFID tag to recognize the helicopter. It does not in fact use AI at all!
LENOVO’s QIRA enters the chat
The big announcement at LENOVO’s TECH WORLD Keynote inside the Las Vegas SPHERE was the introduction of QIRA, an always-on AI personal assistant you don’t have to call on to wake like you need to do with Siri. Of course you can turn it off when you don’t want it listening. The concept personal AI pendant made by Motorola will have sight and reasoning capabilities, and is a huge push in the physical AI wearable device market. See below for a visual from the CES LENOVO Keynote at the Sphere, an incredible event in and of itself and if you want the insider look on that, watch the entire show on my Youtube Channel!
Concept dubbed “Project Maxwell” Motorola Lenovo AI Personal Wearable Companion
Hey there!
You’re reading Astrid’s AI Tips, the Paddock! This is a newsletter and community for every woman ready to tackle 2026 and beyond. And, it’s for anyone who feels overwhelmed by all the AI content out there. My dad used to always say KISS (keep it simple, stupid!) and I promise to do so for you. I truly think by keeping it simple, you’ll end up getting ahead faster. Ask me questions, engage, I am here for you. So stick with me and let’s level up together!
The AI tips here are powerful..
And if you're ready to make profound progress and really LEAD with AI and transform your day to day and accelerate, the content below will change the way you view how your company moves forward from here on out.
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“All devices will become AI devices,”
- Lenovo at CES Keynote
Inside The Founder’s Circle - Deep Dive
I built my CES command center using Claude Code
CES Command Center HomePage
AI creates leverage. I want to know where leverage matters most to you!
For my readers who have tried ChatGPT but maybe not yet Claude, here’s a quick beginner guide to get you set up safely in under a minute.
Whether you’re using CLAUDE, CHATGPT or GEMINI, in order to protect your information, click the gear settings icon and set up permissions. Just keep in mind that if you intend to get the most out of AI, it needs to get to know you a little bit. You CAN do so safely by putting guardrails in place.
Go to privacy settings and toggle your location and chat history settings.
Pro Tip: Delete any chats you don’t want committed to memory.
*With a Paid Plan, there are more features to set up under Privacy & Connections.
Settings - Privacy tab. A full breakdown is on our Youtube Channel
My CES Command Center was built using Claude Code, TOMTOM API, GOOGLE API, Claude’s multimodal computer vision for interpreting screenshots and Open-Meteo API for weather.
Claude Code installs directly on your laptop. Once installed, you’ll communicate with Claude directly in the terminal. Stuck? Just ask Claude for help, and a fairly easy how-to is directly on the Anthropic website. Once installed, you’ll know you did it right if you see this:
Claude Code in your Terminal will look like this
My goal in using Claude Code was to create a) an app I could use on my phone that presented my schedule in an easy to read format, b) create a database of all the speakers I wanted to meet, and c) create follow up emails. I also added weather, traffic, and all my QR codes to enter each event. All in all, 109 speakers, were tracked across 6 days. I was able to pull the data using Claude Multimodal AI with screenshots of every panel I was planning on attending. Auto-synced to Google Drive with no manual entry. Here ‘s how it looks:
Desktop View of my CES Command Center, Coded with Claude Code.
Only I didn’t code anything, Claude did.
I wanted a visually appealing Gallery with all my CES side event tickets!
And I even added an entire database extracted from my CES schedule to find all the incredible women who are speaking at CES this year to invite them to our CES Power Coffee!
Using Claude as a building partner.
Here is part of the conversation with Claude inside my Terminal
I hope you’ll join us for more!
Step 1: Brainstorm First, Build Second. Spend 15 minutes in Claude mapping your vision: What features do you need? Which are the key essentials vs. nice-to-haves?
Step 2: Use What Claude Knows About You For example: “Based on what you know about me and my goals for this year, help me build an app that maximizes my CES networking, manages my speaking schedule, and navigates each venue efficiently so I’m not going back and forth too much” (Claude knew my professional goals, knew who was speaking on what topics, and based on that recommended where to be when. Strategic AI = the tools you build work for your specific mission and goals.
Step 3: Run Security Checks Before deploying, ask Claude Code: “Perform a comprehensive security audit.” It flags vulnerabilities, explains them, and offers fixes. You’re building tools that might handle calendar data, client lists, or API access. You don’t need to be a security expert, but you do need to know your tools aren’t exposing you to risk.
Step 4: Protect Your API Keys : Claude Code has a tendency to peek at your .env files, therefore I’ve created a how-to security document to prevent this from happening. When it asks for an API key, paste it in the secure prompt and it will follow the security protocol. Exposed API keys can give unauthorized access to your accounts, so you want to set yourself up correctly.
Step 5: Start Small, Stay Mission-Focused. My first build wasn’t the Command Center. It was a simple RSS Feed task tracker to learn the workflow. Once I understood how Claude Code responded to my instructions, I added more features. The question I always ask myself: “Why am I building this, and does it serve my overarching goal?”
My Conclusion: I built my CES Command Center in less than 48 hours, approaching it strategically, and adding features as I moved along.
** Let me know if you try this, and reach out if you need help! Then, share it! If you post about it, please tag us so we can reshare! * @astridsaitips on all socials with #LevelUp2026
Thank you for reading! See you next week, and as always, let’s accelerate!
