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Agent Mode AI
Tools · Implementation

Agentic AI implementation readiness — checklist

Five gates. Seventeen questions. Most enterprise agentic AI programmes stall because at least one of these is not yet answered. Score your team against the gates and get a gate-by-gate verdict with recommended next steps.

00/17 answered

1. Problem definition

The agent must own one named workflow with a real failure mode and a named owner.

Can you name the single workflow the agent will own end-to-end?

What breaks today when that workflow runs? (Specific failure mode, not 'inefficiency'.)

Who owns the outcome the agent is accountable to?

2. Data and identity

The agent runs as itself, on approved data, with auditable actions.

Is every data source the agent will touch already on the approved list?

Does the agent have its own non-human identity (not a reused human credential)?

Can you audit the agent's actions to a specific request-ID chain?

What happens to the agent's access when the requesting human leaves the org?

3. Threat model

Documented in-the-wild attacks have been tested against. The kill switch is real.

Has the agent been tested against documented in-the-wild prompt-injection attacks?

Can this agent call other agents, and is that delegation chain logged?

Who has the authority to stop the agent, and how fast does it take effect?

4. Governance and compliance

EU AI Act + DPIA + retention policy mapped to the agent's actual surface area.

Have you assessed whether the agent falls under EU AI Act high-risk obligations?

Is there a named DPIA for agents acting on behalf of employees or customers?

Is there a written retention policy for agent outputs, logs, and intermediate reasoning?

5. Economics

Per-action cost is known. Business case survives a 2× price increase. Exit cost is measured.

Do you know the per-action cost, including inference and orchestration overhead?

Does the business case survive a 2× price increase from the vendor?

At what adoption fraction does the per-seat or per-call economics break?

What is the exit cost — how long to detach, and what data do you lose?

Vigil · 40 reviewed