Six Terms Every Bank Board Needs for the Agent Era

Boards are being asked to approve “AI” programmes that mean very different things. A model that scores credit and an agent that moves money carry different risks, need different controls and answer to different people. These six terms keep the conversation precise.

AI model

Software that predicts, classifies or generates: a credit score, a fraud alert, a reply to a customer. It advises; it does not act.

Agent

An AI model given goals and tools, such as APIs and payment rails, so that it can plan steps and carry them out.

Delegate

An agent acting for a named person or firm under a mandate: what it may do, up to what amount, until when. Customers and staff will both have them.

Autonomous agent

An agent that completes tasks without step-by-step human approval, inside limits the bank sets and monitors.

Human in the loop

The people who set parameters ("this pool lends at 5%, up to KSh 50,000, for 30 days"), approve exceptions and answer for outcomes.

Mandate

The signed, auditable record of what a principal authorised its delegate to do. It is the new unit of consent, and the bank must keep it.

The distinction that matters most is between an agent and a delegate. Every delegate is an agent, but a delegate acts for someone else, and that someone carries the consequences. Banks will serve both kinds: their own autonomous agents, and their customers’ delegates arriving through an agent gateway.