Versatile AI Risk Assessment

Glossary Control and oversight

Degree of autonomy

How much a system decides and executes without human involvement.

As of: September 2026 · Glossary with 28 terms

What is Degree of autonomy?

The degree of autonomy describes how far an AI system makes its own decisions and intervenes in workflows: from pure suggestions through actions with approval to fully independent operation. It is not a property of the model but a deployment decision.

For risk assessment it is one of the strongest levers. As autonomy rises, the possible damage per wrong decision grows while the opportunity to intervene shrinks. The EU AI Act explicitly names autonomy and tool access as factors of systemic risk.

ControlArt. 55 EU AI ActAgentic

Threats using this term (1)

Entries in the threat catalogue whose text uses the term. Every link leads to the full threat page.

Agentic AI / Autonomous Agents AI agents plan multi-step tasks on their own and carry them out with tools such as email, databases, or code execution.

More terms from the subject area Control and oversight.

Human in, on and out of the loop Three levels of human oversight: deciding, watching, or not involved at all. Guardrails Technical rules that bound the input, output and actions of a system. Red teaming Structured attacks on your own system before others attempt them.

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The link leads to the place on the website where the term becomes practical; the overview shows every term in the glossary by subject area.

See agent threats in the catalogue All terms in the glossary

Cite this term

For reports, policies or internal documents; the link leads directly to this term page.

“Degree of autonomy”. Versatile AI Risk Assessment, glossary of AI risk analysis, as of September 2026.
https://www.versatile-ai-risk-assessment.com/en/wissensbasis/glossary/autonomiegrad/

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