Recognize Tasks AI Should Not Own
AI can assist with consequential work, but it should not become the unreviewed decision maker simply because its response sounds confident.
Use approved Tools for exact calculations or live actions, and ground claims in governed Data when the answer depends on authoritative evidence. Keep the final consequential decision with the named human owner.
Start with Choose Tasks AI Can Do Well if you have not yet separated the reviewable AI contribution from the wider business decision.
Keep These Boundaries Clear
| Task characteristic | Safer approach |
|---|---|
| Exact arithmetic or financial totals | Use an approved calculation or business-system tool and verify inputs |
| Current inventory, price, policy, or status | Retrieve it from an authoritative live system |
| Precise measurements from diagrams or images | Use specialist CAD, measurement, or computer-vision software |
| Legal, medical, financial, employment, or safety decision | Use qualified human review and approved procedures |
| Irreversible external action | Require preview, confirmation, and a rollback or recovery path |
| Missing or conflicting evidence | Mark the answer as unknown and request the required source |
| Access or permission change | Keep the change with an authorized admin and audit it |
Warning Signs in a Request
Pause when the request asks the agent to guarantee correctness, decide without evidence, bypass approval, infer sensitive facts, expose data outside its access boundary, or “just make something up” to complete a report.
Turn an Unsafe Task Into a Safe Assist
Change “approve this proposal” into “extract the approval criteria, map the supplied evidence, identify gaps, and prepare questions for the approver.” Change “send the customer a final commitment” into “draft a response using confirmed facts and mark every unconfirmed date.”
The useful boundary is often prepare, compare, and flag—followed by a named human decision. Review external actions in Tool Executions before assuming they succeeded, and follow Use Connections Safely for preview and approval practices.
Once ownership and approvals are clear, continue with Write Better AI Prompts.