Treat AI like an enthusiastic intern with zero experience — practical mental model for AI collaboration¶
Insight: The most useful mental model for working with AI: treat it like an intern fresh out of university — lots of enthusiasm and qualifications but zero real-world experience. You wouldn't trust them unsupervised, you'd explain tasks in detail, expect to review work multiple times, and give feedback to iterate. Practical prompting: define the role ("Act as a user researcher"), break into steps, define what success looks like, and provide examples.
Detail: Applied across UX domains: user research (AI can analyze interview transcripts for themes, but humans must still talk to users), design (AI generates starting points for exploration, not final designs), development (prototypes, not production), content (first drafts that need human editing for tone and brand). The article emphasizes that AI's real value is handling the 80% of grunt work so practitioners can focus on the 20% that requires judgment.