The 3 Biggest Barriers to AI Adoption Across Your Team | Derek Pharr, CPO (Sporcle)
From overcoming team hesitancy to killing bad product ideas in under an hour, Derek Pharr reveals practical lessons for product leaders bringing AI into their workflows.
TL;DR
In this episode of LaunchPod, we sit down with Derek Pharr, CPO at Sporcle, to explore how his team is leading AI adoption across product and content.
Instead of treating AI as hype, Derek confronted the barriers head-on: employee hesitancy, quality concerns, and the breakneck pace of change.
Here’s what we cover:
Why the 3 biggest barriers to AI adoption—job fears, quality doubts, and rapid change—matter, and how Derek addressed them (03:17)
How Sporcle built a “content intern” with Claude Projects to augment trivia writers and improve user engagement (06:35)
How Derek prototyped, tested, and rejected a doomed product idea in under an hour, protecting team focus and morale (25:34)
1. Breaking Through AI Adoption Barriers
At Sporcle, Derek found that introducing AI wasn’t about fighting resistance, but addressing hesitancy. He identified three recurring barriers:
Job security fears: Writers worried AI might replace them. Derek acknowledged the concern, reinforcing that trivia writing is an art form that requires nuance, creativity, and context (skills AI can’t replicate).
Concerns about quality: AI-generated trivia often felt flat or formulaic. Derek reminded the team that their craft elevated trivia beyond “just asking questions.” This helped position AI as a draft tool, not a replacement.
The pace of change: The speed of AI evolution left people feeling unsettled. Derek reframed AI as a tool to offload repetitive tasks, freeing humans to focus on higher-value work.
The key was listening first, then showing practical wins. By validating fears and proving AI’s value in small steps, Derek built trust that encouraged experimentation.
Things you can do
Create forums where employees can openly voice their concerns about AI.
Emphasize the irreplaceable value of human creativity, taste, and nuance.
Pilot AI in low-stakes workflows to demonstrate its role as a helper, not a replacement.
2. Building a “Content Intern” with Claude Projects
To scale Sporcle’s trivia production without sacrificing quality, Derek’s team built a lightweight “content intern” using Claude Projects.
AI drafted trivia questions, giving writers a faster starting point.
Human editors refined and polished the results, ensuring the nuance and creativity remained.
Writers spent less time on repetitive ideation and more on the craft that makes trivia engaging.
This model struck the right balance: AI handled the volume, humans preserved the quality.
Things you can do
Identify repetitive, low-value tasks that AI can draft or accelerate.
Position AI as an “intern” that drafts while humans polish and approve.
Apply AI in narrow, well-defined use cases to build credibility and trust.
3. Prototyping a Doomed Product Idea in Under an Hour
One of Derek’s most powerful stories was about saving time by failing fast.
He used Claude Code to quickly prototype a new idea:
“It wasn’t good. But in an hour, I did this from idea to proof of concept and ruled it out. I didn’t waste anybody’s time, including my own.”
Instead of spending weeks of engineering time, he validated the idea in less than 60 minutes and killed it before it drained resources.
Things you can do
Use AI tools to rapidly prototype concepts before handing them to engineering.
Treat killed ideas as wins—avoided waste is just as valuable as shipped features.
Build a culture that celebrates fast feedback loops, even when the result is “no.”
Chapters
00:00 Intro
03:17 The 3 Biggest Barriers to AI Adoption
06:35 Building a “Content Intern” with Claude Projects
15:08 Scaling Trivia Creation Without Losing Quality
25:34 Prototyping and Killing a Doomed Idea in Under an Hour
34:15 Lessons for Product Leaders on AI Adoption
Links
Leader Spotlight: Building and growing a lasting community, with Derek Pharr
How Lattice’s PM team built and AI Slack Intern | Neha Monga, CPO (Ex-Lattice)
AI tools
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