Adapted from Automation Anywhere. Every agent starts at Stage 1. Promotion is earned, never assumed.
| Stage | Description | Promotion requirement |
|---|---|---|
| 1 — Assisted AI | Agent acts as co-pilot. Humans make 100% of the decisions. | Default starting point. |
| 2 — Human Validation | Agent does the work and recommends an action. Human simply approves (or rejects). | ≥ 90% human-approval rate over 30 days at Stage 1, with no Severity-1 incidents. |
| 3 — Autonomous Operations | Agent operates independently within strict thresholds (e.g., low-value invoices auto-processed). | ≥ 95% success rate over 60 days at Stage 2, plus High-risk approval if applicable, plus runtime guardrails verified. |
| 4 — Strategic Enablement | The CoE provides governed blueprints; business units build their own agents safely on the platform. | Org-level capability — measured by platform adoption and incident rate, not by a single agent. |
Most agents in production stay at Stage 1 or 2 indefinitely. Stage 3 is the exception. Stage 4 is a property of the program, not of an agent.