Human Oversight

The requirement that a human being can monitor, review, intervene in, or override an AI system's outputs or decisions. Human oversight is a core requirement of the EU AI Act for high-risk AI systems and a central principle of responsible AI frameworks globally. In practice, human oversight means designing AI workflows so that a person reviews outputs before they are acted on, can detect errors, and has the authority to correct or reject AI-generated decisions. 'Human in the loop' is the term for workflow designs where human review happens before action; 'human on the loop' refers to review after action with the ability to intervene.

A company's AI-generated contract summary is always reviewed by a lawyer before being sent to the client. The lawyer is the human oversight step — they can catch errors before they become contractual commitments.