I have spent 55 years building and fixing business systems, and today I work on how AI agents fit into them. For most of that time, when something went wrong in a business system, you could find out what happened. There was a record. A person had pressed a button, a program had followed a rule, and the trail led back to a decision someone could explain.
That is changing. AI agents now make decisions on their own: they approve loans, screen job candidates, reorder stock, change settings, talk to other agents, and move money. They do it fast, at night, and in volume. When something goes wrong, the record they leave behind is often a technical log that tells you what happened but not why.
The question every auditor, controller and regulator will ask is simple: what happened, and can you prove it? Today, many organisations would struggle to answer it.
That is what this blog is about: the records that prove what people, systems and AI agents actually did.
What to expect
Reconstruction, Case 1. A thirteen-part story, one part every Monday from October 19. Two AI agents move $380 million between a bank and its biggest client in forty minutes, and by morning nobody can say why. The characters are fiction. The problem is not.
Field Guide. Every two weeks, a plain-English explanation of someone else’s work on this problem: a new standard, a professional framework, a research paper. What it proves, what it does not, and why it matters to you.
Monthly roundup. What others built and published that month, with credit and links.
Who this is for
Auditors, controllers, risk officers, treasurers, and the engineers who build the agents. You should not need a computer science degree to follow along. If a post assumes one, tell me.
How I’ll work
Many good people are already working on this. I want this blog to connect them, not compete with them. I’ll name and link the people whose ideas I use. When I explain someone’s work, I’ll ask them to check it first. When I disagree, I’ll say what each approach proves rather than call anything wrong.
My interest, stated plainly
I build tools for this problem through my company, DUNIN7. When my own work comes up, I’ll say so.
Part 1 arrives Monday. If you subscribe, each new part comes to you by email. If you don’t, everything is here and on LinkedIn.
— Marvin Percival