What if every employee in your organization had unlimited interns? Not just one or two, but as many as they needed—ready to work around the clock, never complaining, never needing time off. What would they delegate? How would their work change?
This thought exercise, credited to Bryon Jacob (CTO of data.world), is one of the most effective ways to help employees embrace AI. It reframes the conversation from "AI might replace me" to "AI can amplify me."
Step 1: Rethink Your Work
Start by having employees list everything they'd delegate to those imaginary interns:
- Administrative tasks they do on autopilot
- Research and analysis that eats up their afternoons
- Content creation they never have time for
- Data processing that feels like busywork
This exercise does three powerful things:
- Develops a delegation-first mindset — Most people have never been taught to think this way. They're used to doing everything themselves.
- Helps identify scalable tasks — Not everything can be delegated, and that distinction becomes clearer through this process.
- Introduces systems thinking — Employees start seeing their work as a set of processes rather than a monolithic job.
Step 2: Build Your "Intern" Team
Now match those delegatable tasks to actual AI tools:
- Administrative: Meeting notes, scheduling assistance, email drafts
- Analysis: Pattern recognition, trend summaries, data insights
- Content: Blog posts, social media, documentation
- Support: FAQ automation, response drafting, inquiry routing
- Development: Code generation, debugging assistance, technical documentation
The mapping doesn't need to be perfect. The goal is to show employees that the capabilities exist—and they're accessible right now.
The Magic Moment
When employees go through this exercise, something shifts. They stop seeing AI as a threat and start seeing it as their personal productivity multiplier. The fear of replacement transforms into excitement about possibility.
Many leave these sessions genuinely excited about work again. They see tasks they've been putting off for months suddenly becoming achievable. They imagine what they could accomplish if the repetitive work just... handled itself.
Why This Works
The beauty of the unlimited interns framework is that it requires zero technical knowledge. Employees don't need to understand machine learning or prompt engineering. They just need to think like a manager with unlimited resources.
That's a mindset shift anyone can make.
The exercise also surfaces something important: most people have never been given permission to think about their work this way. They've been so focused on executing tasks that they've never stepped back to ask which tasks actually require their unique human judgment—and which ones don't.
Putting It Into Practice
Run this exercise with your team. Give them 15 minutes to list everything they'd delegate. Then spend another 15 minutes exploring which AI tools might handle those tasks today.
You'll likely find that the biggest barrier to AI adoption isn't the technology—it's imagination. Once people can envision a different way of working, the adoption conversation becomes much easier.