A CTO’s checklist before an agent reaches production
Production readiness for an AI agent spans workflow requirements, system identity, evaluation, recovery and operations—not just a working model endpoint.
Decision questions and governance practices for accountable AI leaders.
Production readiness for an AI agent spans workflow requirements, system identity, evaluation, recovery and operations—not just a working model endpoint.
A useful quarterly watchlist tracks changes that could alter real decisions: system authority, evidence, incidents, standards, providers and organisational readiness.
A useful tabletop follows one plausible agent failure through detection, containment, evidence, business recovery and accountable return to service.
Boards do not need to review prompts or model scores. They need a clear account of what each agent may do, whose mandate it carries and how control is recovered.
Reviewable agent decisions depend on a small chain of artefacts connecting workflow purpose, authority, configuration, evidence, findings, controls and ownership.
Design an AI workshop backwards from a named decision, then capture evidence, assumptions, disagreements, owners and triggers in an artefact that survives the meeting.
Responsible autonomy becomes concrete when a cross-functional team maps one workflow’s actions, consequences, evidence and intervention choices.
Tool-using agents join untrusted input, probabilistic decisions and privileged action. CISOs should govern that path as a security system, not a chatbot feature.
Audit committees can oversee AI through ownership, control evidence, reporting integrity and assurance scope without turning meetings into model-architecture tutorials.
KEEP EXPLORING
Read the method, assumptions and questions to ask.