AI agents promise to 'run the business,' but who is liable if things go wrong?
Vendors tout the potential, but responsibility remains unclear
“You can’t blame it on the box,” says the boss of a UK financial regulator. What about the people who sold you the box? Good luck with that, says a global tech analyst.
With AI agents now promising to “actively run the business,” anyone looking for an explanation of who might take responsibility for the output of the supposedly world-conquering statistical machines might arrive at the paragraph above, not unreasonably.
The stakes are high. The largest enterprise application providers are now talking about using AI agents to automate decisions in HR, finance, and supply chain management. LLM hallucinations in performance summaries, incorrect regulatory filings, and critical supplies failing to turn up are among the risks weighing on businesses that hand decision-making to AI.
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State of the business model | Copyright and intellectual property