AI agents in the real world
Research-backed field guides to the delegation, verification, permission, memory, and exception failures hidden by capability demos.
AI Agents in the Real World: Five Problems Capability Demos Hide
A research-backed map of the delegation, review, permission, memory, and exception failures that decide whether AI agents help or harm.
The Delegation Contract: How to Let an AI Agent Act Without Losing Control
Replace vague prompts and approval fatigue with a bounded contract for agent goals, data, authority, limits, changes, and receipts.
The AI Agent Review Tax: When Automation Creates Verification Debt
Measure the review, repair, and integration work behind agent output—and design verification that catches errors without erasing the gain.
The Permission–Data Collision: Why Better-Connected Agents Create New Exposure
Connected agents compose identity, data, tools, and untrusted instructions. Contain the resulting paths with purpose-bound, short-lived authority.
Agent Memory Needs a Right to Correct and Forget
Persistent agents need memory provenance, promotion review, expiry, correction, deletion propagation, and visible reasons for every recalled fact.
The AI Agent Exception Economy: Why the Long Tail Decides ROI
Agent ROI is won or lost in ambiguous, failed, and high-risk cases. Price the exception queue before automating the happy path.