# Creating a private AI assistant in Thunderbird

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/practical-ai/creating-a-private-ai-assistant-in-thunderbird
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/practical-ai/creating-a-private-ai-assistant-in-thunderbird.md
Podcast: [Practical AI](https://stenobird.com/podcast/practical-ai)
Published: 2025-09-23T19:50:58+00:00
Episode link: https://share.transistor.fm/s/c73dd974
Audio file: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/media.transistor.fm/c73dd974/7b2ed2ac.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/practical-ai/episodes/creating-a-private-ai-assistant-in-thunderbird
Duration seconds: 3188

## Resource

In this episode, Daniel and Chris are joined by Chris Aquino, software engineer at Thunderbird to hear the story of how they developed a privacy-preserving AI executive assistant. They discuss various design decisions including remote (but confidential) inference, local encryption, and model selection. Chris A. does an amazing job describing the journey from "let the big LLM do everything" to splitting apart the workflow to be handled by multiple models. Featuring: Chris Aquino – LinkedIn Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: Thunderbird Thunderbird Pro Sponsors: Shopify – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at shopify.com/practicalai Upcoming Events: Join us at the Midwest AI Summit on November 13 in Indianapolis to hear world-class speakers share how they’ve scaled AI solutions. Don’t miss the AI Engineering Lounge , where you can sit down with experts for hands-on guidance. Reserve your spot today! Register for upcoming webinars here !

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## Transcript

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