Choose human decision points for AI agents
The choice: automate preparation, not the decision point
Choose a human-in-the-loop workflow for agent tasks whose output will be published, affects a customer, or may create reputational risk. Stanford defines human-in-the-loop as systems in which human feedback or intervention is part of their operation; people can provide guidance, correct errors, or make the final decision. This supports a clear division of responsibilities: the agent gathers, organizes, or creates an initial proposal; the owner defines the objective and criteria and decides on use or follow-up action. This is not evidence that every task requires human review, but it is a useful setup for the high-impact decisions mentioned.
Make review an explicit control point
Specify in advance when the agent must stop and who decides. For high-risk AI, the European Commission states that deployers ensure human oversight and monitoring; that passage applies specifically to high-risk systems and is therefore not a general requirement for every agent workflow. The broader design choice remains practical: treat a deviation from the objective, unclear context, insufficient quality, or customer impact as an escalation to a person. NIST also raises, among other things, the question of how automated monitoring and human-validated monitoring can be balanced and integrated. The sources do not provide a universal threshold or review frequency; determine these for each use case and revise them based on the errors and consequences identified.
Use one decision log per workflow
Make the human role auditable with a small log, rather than a general promise of oversight. Use these fields: intended outcome, owner, context the agent must not fill in itself, quality criterion, escalation signal, and follow-up decision. For each run, briefly record which signal triggered review and whether the output was approved, adjusted, or rejected. Practical artifact: For each agent run, record the objective, owner, context signal, quality assessment, escalation point, and follow-up decision. This makes it visible whether the person is genuinely guarding a decision point rather than merely being present afterward. This article provides an editorial design principle, not legal, financial, or professional advice; applicable obligations, risk classes, and responsibilities vary by system, role, and use case.
