Building enterprise scale innovation
July 2025
Meet Sophia
Director of AI at Home Depot (and formerly Disney), Sophia Van leads the charge in building AI COEs, enterprise AI platforms and scaling GenAI use cases across the business. But her impact doesn’t stop at the office—at home, she’s a mom of two who helped her kids publish their first books on Amazon using AI. From boardrooms to bedtime stories, Sophia is proving that AI isn’t just the future—it’s a family affair.
How “She Runs on AI”
Sophia uses ChatGPT as a brainstorming partner- not for company data- but to crowdsource the internet knowledge to explore ideas, sketch concepts, and even vibe-code for fun. She turns to Perplexity and ChatGPT’s Deep Research tool for market research, while Claude helps her summarize long personal documents like bank forms, research papers, and school notes. At work, she uses AI to help with emails, document summarization and search across internal knowledge bases. At home, multimodal AI helps with everything from identifying faucet parts to planning garden layouts. Her family uses Midjourney for children’s book illustrations and Canva AI to create birthday cards and banners. Sophia taught her parents to use ChatGPT’s multimodal features to translate street signs and documents by simply snapping a photo, or to talk directly to ChatGPT as a real-time audio translator in their native language.
Oh, and when parenting gets complex? She even uses ChatGPT to decode teen psychology and draft the most “reasonable mom” responses she can manage. Currently, she and her husband are exploring a passion project using Suno to turn his grandfather’s renowned Vietnamese poetry into songs—bringing legacy to life through the power of AI.
Her #1 AI Hack
“Don’t just ask AI for answers—ask it to think with you. Whether I’m scoping a use case, analyzing trade-offs, or stuck naming a framework, I treat ChatGPT as a brainstorming partner to explore different angles, crowdsource public intelligence, and unlock better ideas. Early in my career, a mentor told me: ‘Great leaders know how to ask great questions.’ That advice stuck. And it turns out, the same applies to AI. The real magic isn’t in the model—it’s in how you guide it. Clear intent, layered prompts, and follow-up questions are what unlock meaningful, reliable output. But equally important: know the risks. Even simple tasks like summarization can introduce hallucinations. So I always verify the output—trust, but validate. Responsible AI use starts with awareness.”
The Impact: How AI Changed Her Routine
Sophia doesn’t just work in AI—she lives with it. From leading AI strategy and platform development at work to co-authoring stories at home with her kids and helping her parents, AI touches nearly every part of her life. She’s built a career in AI, grown a family with AI by her side, and now relies on it daily—whether it’s troubleshooting a data pipeline, summarizing school notes, or picking the right plants for her yard. For Sophia, AI isn’t a tool. It’s part of the rhythm of her routine. It’s AI that spans generations, homes, and work.
Her Advice to Women Exploring AI
"AI isn’t about replacing people—it’s about amplifying what makes us human: curiosity, creativity, connection. You don’t have to be an engineer to start. I’ve seen my kids write books, my parents break language barriers, and myself grow both professionally and personally—all with AI by our side."
"One of the most inspiring learners I’ve known was my late mentor, Gail Evans. Despite her demanding schedule, she spent weekends watching every single AI videos on YouTube that I shared—determined to understand the future, even later in life. At her age, she never stopped learning. And neither should we."
"Just start with a question. Then ask another. The rest unfolds from there."
Follow SheRunsOnAI™ for inspiration from women building, thinking, and leading with AI. Let’s ‘Run on AI’, not to run faster but go to places we’ve never been before, together.