Governing the Rise of Agentic AI
The ACR Framework™
A six-pillar model for securing and controlling autonomous AI agents.
A six-pillar model for securing and controlling autonomous AI agents.
Every agent has a defined identity and operational scope to prevent unauthorized repurposing.
Guardrails that control what agents can and can't do during runtime operations.
Monitoring for deviations from intended behavior patterns and operational boundaries.
Transparent logs and visibility into agent decisions and operational history.
Built-in rollback, isolation, and kill switch mechanisms for risk containment.
Humans retain ultimate control with intervention capabilities at any decision point.
The ACR Framework™ is built on six foundational mechanisms designed to govern the safe and responsible operation of agentic AI systems. Together, they create a layered architecture for control, auditability, and human alignment.
Agents must have a unique identity and a clearly defined operational purpose. This prevents unauthorized repurposing and anchors every action to its intended role.
Dynamic, runtime policies define what an agent is allowed to do. These guardrails are enforced continuously to ensure compliance with ethical, legal, and operational constraints.
Detects when an agent begins to deviate from its intended behavior, role, or reasoning patterns. Enables early alerts and corrective actions before harm occurs.
Ensures complete transparency into what the agent did, when, and why. Logging, traceability, and decision forensics are essential for audit, trust, and diagnostics.
Agents must be able to recognize faults, isolate compromised behavior, revert to safe states, or shut down. A built-in kill switch allows for immediate shutdown by humans or systems when risk is detected.
Human operators must retain the ability to monitor, intervene, or override at any time. Critical decisions, edge cases, or unexpected outputs always route through human review.
Interested in contributing to the development of the ACR Framework™?
Join the Contributor NetworkAI is entering a new phase — one where agents can take action, make decisions, and operate semi-independently. This power demands new forms of governance, beyond traditional cybersecurity and compliance models.
The ACR Framework™ was developed to address the unique risks of agentic AI — models and systems capable of acting with autonomy, memory, and long-term objectives. Rather than treat every model like a static tool, ACR treats agents like digital entities: with identities, behaviors, and the capacity to evolve or drift.
This framework provides the architecture to control, monitor, contain, and guide these agents safely — always with human interests at the center.
Creator of the ACR Framework™
Adam is a cybersecurity leader and AI innovator focused on governance, alignment, and resilience at the frontier of intelligent systems. He created the ACR Framework™ to help organizations adopt agentic AI safely — and with confidence.
The ACR Framework™ is being implemented at leading AI labs and enterprises worldwide. Want to learn how it can work for your team?
The ACR Framework™ is just the beginning. We're building a community of engineers, researchers, and leaders who care about safety, alignment, and responsibility in autonomous systems.