Approvals that scale: keeping humans in the loop without slowing down

The first question every team asks is “what if the agent gets it wrong?” The honest answer is that sometimes it will. The goal is to make sure the mistakes that matter are caught before they happen.

Start with the blast radius

Sort every action an agent can take by how hard it is to undo. Reading a document is free to undo. Sending an email to a customer is not. Issuing a refund definitely is not.

• Low: reading, searching, drafting. No approval needed.
• Medium: updating records, posting internally. Approve while you build trust.
• High: anything external or involving money. Always approve.

Make approving fast

An approval that takes ten minutes to understand will be rubber-stamped or ignored. Every approval in Agento shows what the agent wants to do, why, and the sources it used, so a person can decide in seconds.

Loosen the rules with evidence

After a few weeks, look at the approval history. If a step has been approved without changes hundreds of times, it’s a good candidate to run on its own, with a spot check instead.