Levels of Autonomy
1 reads, 2 suggests, 3 acts with approval, 4 acts on its own. Moves up a level when evals prove it.
In one sentence
Delegation scale by process: the agent only reads, suggests, acts with approval, or acts on its own. Each company process is classified at a level and moves up as evals prove reliability.
Before
Accumulated evidence
What it does
Delegation level defined case by case
After
Moves up a level when evals prove it
Example
Matching in Portuguese: level 4, acts on its own, because it has six weeks of evals above the baseline. In Spanish: level 3, acts with approval, because the dataset still has only 40 cases. Child who left the program: level 2, only suggests.
The process is the same, but the evidence is different in each case, and so are the levels.
The common mistake
Classifying the entire company at one level. Autonomy is defined by use case and by segment: the same task can be level 4 in one language and level 2 in another. Anyone who classifies wholesale always errs on the dangerous side.
In practice
- One row per task and per segment.
- Attach the evidence and the date. Moving up without evidence is the most common way to lose trust.
- Moving down a level has to be as easy as moving up.
How to make it tangible
A table: process, segment, current level, supporting evidence, and what is missing to move up.
Translated from Portuguese with AI assistance.