Accountability Review
Who owns the final results now?
Accountability Review is a quarterly review that re-inventories agents, results, human owners, permissions, and controls. It compares them with the enacted baseline, then defines what needs correction and re-baselining.
- Cadence
- Quarterly cycle.
- Prerequisite
- An enacted AI Operating Model and an established baseline for agents, results, human owners, permissions, and controls.
How the record drifts
The agent changed. The record did not change with it.
An AI operating model does not remain static after agents enter the work. Agent versions change. Permissions expand. New uses and results appear. Roles and workflows move. The owner recorded in the original model may remain on paper while practical responsibility shifts elsewhere.
An agent may begin inside a clearly defined workflow and boundary, then gradually be used differently:
- The agent enters another workflow.
- Its model, version, or data source changes.
- It receives additional permissions.
- Its output begins affecting a decision outside the original scope.
- The employee responsible for the result changes.
- Human review becomes a procedural formality.
- Repeated exceptions are not added to the model.
- Escalation or manual-override rules change.
- The old record remains in place while the agent operates differently.
The review does not assume every change is wrong.
Its role is to distinguish an intentional change that should be incorporated from a gap that leaves the result, authority, or human ownership unclear.
When it fits
When does Accountability Review fit?
- An AI Operating Model has entered practice.
- A previous baseline exists for agents, results, and human owners.
- Agents or use cases have been added since the previous review.
- Access or execution permissions have changed.
- Functions or roles responsible for agent results have changed.
- Exceptions or manual overrides are becoming frequent.
- The current record no longer reflects what operates today.
- Leadership needs organizational evidence that ownership, boundaries, and controls remain in use.
- The next quarterly review is due.
What we review
What do we review?
Agents operating now
Re-inventory the agents in actual use, the functions and workflows they enter, and changes introduced since the previous version.
Results and decisions
Review the results and decisions each agent affects and identify any expansion not reflected in the baseline.
Named human ownership
Confirm that every result has a clear human owner and that recorded ownership matches responsibility in practice.
Permissions and boundaries
Review what each agent may access, recommend, change, or execute and where human approval is required.
Controls and human review
Examine whether human review points, escalation, manual override, and stopping rules remain clear and usable.
Reference trail
Review whether sufficient evidence exists to understand agent output and related decisions without presenting the review as an independent technical audit.
Live use
Compare the designed model with actual work and identify boundaries or controls that exist on paper but are not being used.
How the cycle runs
How does the review cycle work?
Re-inventory
Record the agents, results, functions, and permissions operating now.
Compare
Compare the current state with the previous baseline. Distinguish intentional changes from changes made without a clear organizational decision.
Correct
Define the required corrections to ownership, permissions, controls, or escalation routes.
Re-baseline
Issue an updated, versioned baseline with named owners, evidence from live use, and the date of the next review.
What it produces, and where it stops
What does the organization leave with?
- An updated inventory of operating agents.
- An updated map of the results and decisions each agent affects.
- A named human owner for every result.
- Reviewed access, recommendation, and execution permissions.
- Reviewed human control and intervention points.
- Updated escalation, override, and stopping rules.
- Identified gaps between the approved model and live use.
- Defined corrections with a named owner for each.
- Evidence of what is being used in practice.
- A new versioned baseline.
- The date of the next review cycle.
What does Accountability Review exclude?
- A complete redesign of the AI Operating Model inside the review cycle.
- Building, training, or reprogramming agents.
- Monitoring agent technical performance.
- Security or infrastructure testing.
- Independent regulatory or compliance audit.
- Legal or regulatory opinion.
- Assessing the agent's technical model.
- Guaranteeing that every agent output is correct or safe.
- Replacing security, risk, compliance, or internal-audit functions.
If the review shows that the current model no longer fits the scale or nature of agent use, a separate redesign is scoped.
Where our work stops
Linkgurus reviews the organizational model. The technology function reviews the technology.
Linkgurus reviews
- Agents and results.
- Named human ownership.
- Organizational permissions and boundaries.
- Controls and escalation points.
- Designed practice compared with live use.
- Required corrections and their named owners.
- The versioned organizational baseline.
The client's technology function or technology partner remains responsible for
- Model and agent performance.
- Security and infrastructure.
- Data and integrations.
- Technical testing.
- Deployment and technical monitoring.
- Fault resolution.
- Implementing required technical changes.
Alternative route
If no enacted model or previous baseline exists, the review has nothing to measure against.
Explore the AI Operating Model
Do not wait until an agent result has no clear owner
If agent use has expanded, permissions have changed, or the baseline no longer reflects current operations, it is time to re-inventory and review the model.