glossary
What is human in the loop for AI agents?
Human in the loop is an AI workflow where a person reviews or approves steps. How it differs from autonomous agents and where it belongs.
Human in the loop means a person reviews, approves, or corrects part of the AI's work instead of letting it run end to end on its own. It's a design choice about where a person sits in the process, not a single feature you turn on.
What it means
The phrase covers a range of approaches. On the strict end, an approval gate stops the agent before every important action and shows you exactly what it wants to do. On the loose end, a human reviews the output after the fact, like editing a generated document before sharing it.
When a vendor says "human in the loop" on a pricing page, it could mean any of these. The question to ask is: where does the person sit? Before the action (approval), during it (taking over mid-task), or after it (reviewing the result)? The strictest version, approval before acting, is the one that prevents mistakes rather than catching them.
Example
Your agent researches a question, drafts an answer, and writes a follow-up email. The research and drafting run on their own. The email stops at an approval gate because sending is external. You read the draft, fix a detail, and approve. That's human in the loop at the point that matters most.
Where it appears in Doozy
Doozy puts the human in the loop at the approval gate. Agents do the work freely until they reach something consequential: sending a message, making a purchase, deleting something, or changing production. Those actions pause and wait for you. See how approval gates work.