What is human in the loop?

Not every decision needs a person, and not every decision should be left to AI. Human in the loop is how you draw that line. The AI does the work it's sure of, and at agreed points, such as a low confidence score, a large order or anything that commits the business, it passes the decision to a person with everything they need to make it quickly.

An example. An AI agent reads incoming trade orders by email and builds each one in the ERP. A routine repeat order at standard prices goes straight through. An order with an unusual quantity, a product the customer has never bought, or a price outside their agreement is put in front of the sales team to approve, with the original email and the agent's reasoning alongside. The team only spends time where their judgement is needed.

Why it matters

• Trust. Customers and your team can rely on the AI, because the decisions that matter still have a person behind them.
• Catching what AI gets wrong. A person reviewing low-confidence work stops an AI hallucination before it reaches a customer.
• Getting better over time. Every case a person corrects shows where the AI needs to improve.
• Oversight. Regulation and good governance increasingly expect people to be able to understand, overrule and stop AI.

Where the person comes in

There are three routes, not two: the AI acts, it shows a person its work with the confidence visible, or it escalates. Where each threshold sits depends on the job and the cost of a mistake, and it's yours to set. Many businesses start cautiously, with more going to a person, and let the AI take on more as it proves itself.

How we do it

Every system we build asks a person before anything that commits money, stock or a promise: the assistant proposes, the person commits. Every output carries a confidence, and below the threshold you set it shows a person or escalates. When an assistant hands over, it passes the conversation so far, so nobody starts again. Escalation is a path we design, with someone reading it, not an exception. Once it's live, our AI managed services track how often a person overturns its answer.

How to decide what an agent does alone and what goes to a person, and how that changes over time: Human in the loop: where the threshold goes, from Enceladus AI, the PureNet Group's AI strategy company.