Separate execution from judgement
Agents can be effective at bounded research, implementation, testing and evidence gathering. Decisions involving strategy, employment, material spend, sensitive data or subjective acceptance remain with named people. The boundary should be explicit before work starts.
Make escalation useful
An agent should not merely stop and announce uncertainty. A useful escalation states what has been verified, the exact conflict or missing authority and the smallest decision needed from a person. That preserves momentum without pretending the system has permission it does not have.
Keep a reviewable record
Accountability requires more than a transcript. The organisation needs a durable link between the instruction, the action taken, the version released and the evidence used to call the outcome complete.