Encyclopedia
Human in the loop
What human in the loop means, why it matters for AI agents, and the common patterns for it.
Human in the loop is a design where a person stays involved in an AI system, reviewing, approving or taking over its work, rather than letting it act fully on its own.
Why it matters
AI agents are capable but not infallible: they can misread a request or answer confidently but wrongly. Keeping a human in the loop means the cases that carry risk, or that the agent is unsure about, reach a person before anything irreversible happens. It is how automation scales without giving up control.
Common patterns
- Escalation: the agent hands a conversation to a human when it is unsure or when the customer asks.
- Approval: the agent drafts an action or reply and a person approves it before it goes out.
- Review: humans sample past conversations to catch mistakes and improve the setup.
- Override: a person can step in and take over at any point.
From reference to practice
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