AI autonomy
AI autonomy is how much an AI system is allowed to act on its own — from only observing, to proposing actions, to acting within limits, to leading a process. Higher autonomy means less human involvement per action; responsible systems make the level explicit and adjustable.
Key characteristics
- A spectrum, not on/off — observe → propose → act → lead
- Should be configurable per task and per system
- Higher autonomy needs stronger guardrails and logging
- Sensitive actions are typically gated regardless of level
- The control that lets you trust AI with real work
Example
A business sets its AI teammate to 'propose' for client emails — it drafts every reply for review — but allows 'act' for internal status updates it has come to trust, while sending payments stays gated no matter what.
How it relates to Kuvai
Every Kuvai teammate has an explicit autonomy level — it defaults to Propose (it drafts, you decide), and you raise it only where you've built trust. Sensitive actions like sending email, posting to a ledger, or paying are never-autonomous regardless of level, and every action is logged with its reason. Autonomy you control is how AI becomes safe to trust with real work.
Related terms
Agentic AI is artificial intelligence that plans and takes multi-step, autonomous action toward a goal — rather than just generating a single piece of text in response to a prompt. Where a standard generative model answers what you ask, agentic AI decides what needs to happen, breaks the goal into steps, uses tools to carry them out, and adapts as it goes, working with limited human input.
AI agentAn AI agent is software that perceives its environment, decides what to do, and takes action toward a goal — often autonomously and over multiple steps — by using tools, calling APIs, and reasoning with a language model. Unlike a chatbot that only generates text in reply to a prompt, an agent can act on the world: it can search, read, write to systems, and chain steps together to complete a task rather than just answer a question.
AI teammateAn AI teammate is a software colleague that owns a defined job end-to-end — grounded in a business's own documents and data, connected to its tools, and running on a schedule. Unlike an AI assistant you prompt, a teammate works continuously, accumulates your context, and drafts actions for your approval rather than waiting to be asked.