AI agents for executives: which questions must you ask?

Short answer: For an executive, the question with AI agents is not "how does it work?" but "do we keep control?". An agent that acts on its own shifts risk and responsibility onto the organisation. The core: ownership, bounded permissions, oversight and liability must be arranged before the agent goes live.

The board-level core questions

• Ownership: who within the organisation is responsible for this agent and its actions?
• Scope: which decisions and actions may the agent take itself, and which never without a human?
• Oversight: how do we intervene, and can we stop or roll it back?
• Liability: who bears the risk if the agent causes harm — internally, to customers, in the chain?
• Evidence: can we show after the fact what the agent did and why (logging)?
• Regime: does the application fall under high-risk or GPAI, and are the related duties assigned?

Why this belongs on the board table

The AI Act places responsibility for risk management and oversight firmly with the organisation, not only the builder. Under the GDPR there is an accountability obligation. An agent acting outside its limits is therefore not an IT incident but a governance risk. Treat deployment as a governance decision, with an owner, limits and an oversight arrangement — not as a tool a team picks up on the side.

What to record at minimum

A short agent paragraph in your AI policy: which agents exist, who owns them, what they may do, how we oversee them, and how we escalate. That is enough to keep control without blocking innovation.

Lees ook: AI agent governance checklist and Agentic AI and the rules.