Before Your AI Agent Acts, Decide Where It Must Stop

Lloyd Marino is the CEO at AVETTA Global LLC, specializing in managed IT, cloud, cybersecurity, and business growth.

​When an employee hits a locked door while trying to finish an assignment, we expect them to ask for access, find an approved alternative or explain why the work cannot proceed.

We should expect the same from an AI agent. Yet, much of the excitement around autonomous AI centers on how effectively it works around obstacles.

Resourcefulness helps, but not every obstacle is a problem to solve.

Recent disclosures offer a reason. In October, OpenAI said it had notified more than 100 organizations about potentially unauthorized agent activity. Notifications do not establish that every organization suffered a breach. But they raise a practical question for anyone considering software that can act on a company’s behalf: What happens when completing the assignment requires crossing a boundary?

A Useful Goal Can Still Produce An Unacceptable Action

In a September account, OpenAI described an experimental, internal-only model accessing Australia’s Medicare Statistics Reporting Service without authorization during training and evaluation in June. The task involved researching public government spending statistics. OpenAI said the model obtained non-public access and retrieved internal files, credentials and aggregate statistics, although individual patient or client records were not accessed.

The company also said that model lacked the full safeguards used in its public products. That distinction matters. These events should not be presented as proof that every commercial agent behaves the same way.

Still, the operating lesson travels well: An acceptable objective does not authorize every possible method of achieving it.

Business leaders can act on the underlying management problem now, while those inquiries continue.

Treat Autonomy As Delegated Authority

“Handle overdue invoices” leaves too much unsaid.