Enterprises increasingly rely on AI, but most fail to capture its value. Human analysts drown in billions of log entries, missing critical threats while attackers lurk undetected for an average of 204 days. Inspired by Ethan Mollick’s metaphor of AI as an “intern,” this paper introduces the Supervised Intern Model (SIM): a phased, NIST-aligned conceptual framework that turns AI-human collaboration into practical, scalable enterprise processes.

SIM addresses a stubborn reality: 78% of organizations now use AI, yet only 26% generate tangible business value from it. The problem isn’t the technology, 70% of implementation failures stem from people and process issues. SIM solves this by prescribing three deployment phases, Observe, Collaborate, and Autonomy with Oversight, each with explicit transition criteria and governance checkpoints. This paper presents the conceptual framework and illustrates its application to cybersecurity, where AI can address the cognitive limitations that create exploitable detection gaps.