Setting AI Approval Policies

The Need for Boundaries

When an AI agent is granted permission to act (e.g., sending an email, issuing a refund, modifying a record), the business must establish rules determining whether the action happens automatically or is paused for human review.

These boundaries act as guardrails, allowing AI to handle routine, low-risk tasks quickly while routing sensitive or high-value decisions to the appropriate human operator.

Common Triggers for Manual Approval

When configuring approval policies, consider the following criteria for pausing an AI action:

• Financial thresholds: An agent might automatically issue a $10 credit to a dissatisfied customer, but a refund of $150 should trigger an approval request to a finance manager.
• Sensitive data access: If a customer support agent needs to retrieve a file containing personally identifiable information (PII) or financial details, a supervisor must approve the access.
• Destructive actions: Deleting accounts, canceling subscriptions, or altering core system configurations should rarely happen without human validation.
• External communication: Drafting an email is low-risk; sending it to a distribution list of 5,000 customers carries high reputational risk and warrants review.

Implementing Policies

An effective approval policy must clearly define who is authorized to grant the approval. The system should route requests to the correct stakeholder: finance issues to a controller and data issues to an IT manager. It should provide enough context (the agent's reasoning, the requested action) for the human to make an informed decision.

For further reading on establishing organizational controls and managing the impact of AI systems, we recommend the resources provided in the NIST AI Risk Management Framework Knowledge Base.