Human in the loop
Definition
Human in the loop means a defined point at which a person reviews, approves or corrects the AI system's work. The handover is designed in advance for specific triggers — value thresholds, low confidence, unknown counterparties — rather than left to chance.
Well-designed handovers raise throughput instead of slowing it: routine cases pass automatically, and human attention is concentrated on the exceptions that actually need judgement.
Corrections should feed back into the system as rules or examples, so the same exception does not need the same person twice.
In practice
- Explicit escalation triggers instead of ad-hoc checking
- Reviewer sees the source data next to the proposed output
- Corrections are captured and reused
Related terms
- GuardrailsGuardrails are the technical limits around an AI system: allowed tools, value ranges, spending and volume caps, forbidden actions and mandatory approvals. They turn an unpredictable model into a system that fails safely and visibly.
- Straight-through processing (STP)Straight-through processing is the share of cases that pass from intake to completion without any manual intervention. It is the central operational metric of an automation programme, because it directly translates into cost and cycle time per case.
- AI employeeAn AI employee is a software worker that executes a defined job inside a company's own systems: it receives work, applies the company's rules, writes results back into the operational software and escalates whatever it cannot decide. It works continuously and is measured like a role, not like a tool.