Glossary and sources

The terms that carry the argument, defined once.

Glossary

TermDefinition
System of recordWhere trusted employment, payroll, and people data lives. Usually the HCM. Chosen for governance and reliability.
System of actionWhere work is initiated and completed. In an AI-native company this sits above the system of record, not inside it.
Orchestration layerThe layer that routes work across systems, approvals, and agents.
Organizational context layerPolicy, competencies, job architecture, decision rules, and entitlement logic in machine-readable form, with named owners.
AgenticUsed sparingly, always with a concrete referent. A property of work that an agent can carry across steps and systems, not a mood.
The Human Stakes ModelA framework that decides what gets automated by how much it touches a person’s dignity, standing, or livelihood.
The human lineThe boundary between agent-led and human-led work. The more is at stake, the more visible a person has to be.
Personal Work AgentThe persistent, secure, context-aware agent every employee gets.

Sources and further reading

Point-in-time note

The regulatory summary in Chapter 10 is accurate as of the publication date and will drift. Treat it as a starting point for your own legal review, not a substitute for it.

Full citations for the research referenced in Chapter 2 and the regulatory summary in Chapter 10 are compiled here at publication. Where a figure could not be sourced to independent third-party research, the argument is kept and the number is omitted.