Lesson 1289 of 1596
Agentic AI: Roll Out a New Agent in Shadow Mode Before Letting It Act
Run a new agent alongside the human or existing system, capture proposed actions without executing them, and compare for a full evaluation cycle.
Creators · Agentic AI · ~6 min read
The premise
Shadow mode is the cheapest way to learn what an agent would do in production without the cost of being wrong; most teams skip this and pay later.
What AI does well here
- Capture proposed actions without executing
- Compare agent action vs human action per case
- Surface disagreements for review
- Estimate true error rate before flipping the switch
What AI cannot do
- Detect issues that only appear when the agent's action is real (downstream system reactions)
- Substitute for a canary on the live action
- Replace user testing of the new experience
Key terms in this lesson
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