Building AI Agents for Regulated Industries: The Architecture of "Prepare, Don't Decide"

Short summary

An architecture for AI agents in regulated professional-services industries that treats human approval as a first-class pipeline step rather than an afterthought. The four-layer design separates document intake, agent preparation work, mandatory human approval, and detailed audit logging. The key principle is 'prepare, don't decide' — agents extract, draft, and flag, but never exercise professional judgment. The author recommends starting with one low-judgment task, running it in parallel with manual processes, and expanding only after trust is earned.

• •Four-layer architecture: document intake, agent preparation, mandatory human approval, detailed audit logging
• •Agents prepare work but never exercise professional judgment — the 'prepare, don't decide' principle
• •Start with one repetitive low-judgment task, run in parallel with manual process, expand only after proven reliability

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