Defense and governance
Human in the loop
Human in the loop is a control where a person must approve a high-risk agent action before it runs, keeping a human accountable for consequential decisions.
Also called: human oversight, approval workflow
Definition
What is human in the loop for AI agents?
A human in the loop control inserts a person at the point of a consequential action. Instead of letting an agent execute a high-risk tool call automatically, the gateway holds the call and routes it for approval; the action proceeds only if a human signs off, and the approval is recorded alongside it.
Used well, it is targeted rather than blanket: routine, low-risk calls run automatically, while the small set of dangerous ones (large payments, production deletes, sending data externally) pause for review. This preserves the speed of automation while keeping a named human accountable for the decisions that matter, which most governance frameworks require for high-risk AI.
FAQ
Common questions.
Doesn't human review defeat the point of automation?
Only if applied to everything. Effective controls hold just the high-risk actions for approval and let routine calls run automatically, so you keep automation's speed while a human owns the consequential decisions.
Related terms
Keep reading.
Govern the actions, not just the vocabulary
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