“Human-in-the-Loop” Doesn’t Mean What You Think

By Christoph Burkhardt

AI Strategy Advisor | Founder, AI Impact Institute

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Many organizations claim to keep humans “in the loop.”

In practice, that often means:

• Someone reviews outputs after the fact

• Someone approves recommendations they didn’t frame

• Someone takes responsibility without authority

That’s not judgment. That’s supervision theater.

Organizations should operationalizes judgment by embedding it directly into the workflow:

• Framing the right questions

• Prompting with intent

• Evaluating with nuance

• Deciding with ownership

• Shipping with responsibility

This is where leadership stops being abstract and becomes behavioral.