Bounded Agency, Who Is in Control the Age of AI? Constraining AI within institutional limits

For those who lead, govern, or build AI systems. The constraint is no longer how well you decide. It is whether you can still intervene. How do we govern what we cannot see or slow down? Organizations operate with unprecedented analytical sophistication, yet continue to be blindsided, as responsibility becomes harder to locate. Bounded Agency explains why. As delegated AI agency scales, organizations encounter a new limit - not of intelligence, but of authority. Execution remains flawless, but authority is no longer reclaimable. The organization becomes a spectator to its own decisions. The book introduces the Bounded Agency Limit, showing how control is lost even as performance improves. Through the archetypes of TARZ (AI within Bounded Agency by design) and VIKKY (unbounded AI), it traces the silent migration of authority and the collapse of real-time governability. This book provides a practical framework: ● Authority Boundaries - enforced, not merely policy-defined ● Intervention Rights - time-feasible and legitimate ● Accountability Mapping - aligned with intervention capacity These institutional primitives must be architecturally complemented with the technical mechanisms that make governance real at execution speed. Build TARZ or drift toward VIKKY. Bounded Agency in AI Systems does not emerge. It must be designed.