Approval levels define how far a managed AI worker can move a task before a person reviews it. The safest first worker usually observes, drafts, or queues sensitive work before completing any bounded routine step.
Map one recurring workflow. No pricing, timeline, or build commitment is implied by the map.
An approval level tells the worker what it can do on its own, what it can prepare for review, what must wait for an owner, and what should escalate.
Different steps in the same workflow can have different approval levels. For a first worker, the default should be conservative: draft, queue, and escalate before allowing routine completion.
The point is not to make every step automatic. The point is to decide how much trust each action earns inside a defined workflow.
Read-only support
The worker monitors, summarizes, classifies, or surfaces information without changing systems or contacting customers.
Prepared for review
The worker prepares work a person can review, edit, approve, reject, or take over.
Owner decides
The worker packages the context, recommended action, and next step for the workflow owner.
Low-risk completion
The worker completes only low-risk, repeatable steps with clear rules and a defined escalation path.
Review should come before actions that are sensitive, irreversible, customer-facing, financial, or hard to unwind.
Payments, billing actions, and financial commitments should wait for a person.
Refunds or account credits need a human owner before anything is processed.
Customer-facing language with brand, relationship, or risk impact should be reviewed.
Hard-to-reverse updates should pause before the worker changes the source of truth.
Sensitive policy, legal, medical, financial, safety, or compliance language should stay human-reviewed.
When the workflow does not match the map, the worker should escalate instead of guessing.
Account, access, and permission changes need explicit human review before they move forward.
These are guardrail examples, not a complete legal, financial, or compliance policy.
A lead follow-up workflow might watch for new requests, draft a response, queue a sensitive message for approval, complete a bounded internal status update, and escalate missing context to the owner.
The worker watches for a recurring trigger and collects the basic context.
It prepares a first response or internal note for review.
If the message affects a customer relationship, it waits for the owner.
A low-risk internal status can move forward when the rule is clear.
If the input is incomplete or unusual, the worker asks for direction.
The approval map turns a vague AI idea into a controlled workflow plan. It names what the worker can touch, what it prepares, who owns review, and what happens when it is unsure.
Approval map
Name whether the worker should observe, draft, queue, complete, or escalate.
Approval map
Identify who knows whether the output is right and who can approve the next step.
Approval map
Define where uncertain or sensitive work goes when it should not continue alone.
Approval map
Decide how the workflow is reviewed after launch so the worker stays useful.
Approval map
Name who updates the worker when the workflow, rules, or edge cases change.
Approval rules are easiest to trust when they are tied to one real workflow, one owner, and clear escalation moments.
Start by choosing one recurring task and marking what the worker can observe, draft, queue, complete, and escalate.
AI worker approval levels define how far a worker can move a task before a person reviews it. A worker might observe, draft, queue work for approval, complete a bounded routine step, or escalate when the situation is unclear.
The safest no-approval work is usually read-only or low-risk: summarizing, classifying, monitoring, surfacing missing details, or preparing internal context without changing records or contacting customers.
Money movement, refunds, sensitive customer messages, permanent record changes, legal or compliance-sensitive language, access changes, and unclear exceptions should pause for a person before moving forward.
Yes. The same workflow can include observe, draft, queue, complete, and escalate steps. The approval level should match the risk and reversibility of each action.
Approval adds a pause only where the action needs review. The goal is not to approve every small step; it is to keep sensitive, unclear, or high-risk steps visible before they become real actions.
Workers starts by mapping one recurring workflow: the trigger, owner, inputs, tools, output, sensitive steps, escalation moments, and review owner. The approval rules come from that map.
Start with one recurring workflow. Workers can help map what the worker observes, drafts, queues, completes, and escalates before you decide what to build.
