Agents can read, decide and act inside your systems. Here is how to give them useful autonomy without losing oversight.
An AI agent is software that can take a goal, look things up, decide on steps and act inside your business systems. That power is exactly why it needs careful design.
Narrow jobs beat general assistants
An agent that 'handles sales' is hard to test and harder to trust. An agent that qualifies inbound enquiries against five written criteria is easy to test, measure and improve. Start narrow.
Permissions, not promises
Give each agent access only to the systems and records its job requires. If it drafts quotes, it can read the price list and write drafts. It cannot change prices.
Decide where people approve
List every action the agent can take and sort them into three groups:
- Runs automatically: reading, searching, drafting, internal notes.
- Needs approval: anything sent to a customer, any discount, any payment.
- Never allowed: deleting records, changing master data, legal commitments.
Log everything
Every input, decision and action should be recorded with the reason the agent gave. When something goes wrong, the log tells you why and how to fix it. When things go right, it is your evidence for expanding the agent's role.
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