At least five, and usually more. One governed agent needs a named owner, a deputy who can pause it, two or more reviewers for cover, an approver for actions above the reviewers' limits, and whoever builds and certifies it. Fewer than that, and the agent is safe only on days when everyone is in.
Who are the people around one agent?
| Role | What they do | What they need to know |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | Answers for the agent: its brief, limits, depth and incidents | Everything a reviewer knows, plus running the rhythm and usage |
| Deputy owner | Pauses the agent and handles certificate events when the owner is away | How to pause, how to read a failed run, who to tell |
| Reviewers, two or more | Decide held actions every day | How a governed agent decides, held and refused verdicts, provenance, the record |
| Approver above limits | Decides held actions that exceed reviewers' authority | The same as reviewers, plus the business's own limits |
| Builder | Writes the brief, sets sources, runs certification | How agents are designed, trained and certified, and why depth is earned |
Add one person from risk or compliance who reads the record and challenges depth changes. They do not run the agent, but the arrangement is weaker without them.
Some people can hold two roles. In a small business, the owner may also be the approver, and the builder may also review. What should not happen is one person holding every role, because then nobody checks anybody.
Why does the count matter?
Three reasons.
Cover. Held actions wait for a named person. If the only trained reviewer is on leave, held work piles up, or untrained colleagues start clearing it. Either outcome defeats the point of holding it.
Capacity shocks. An agent's certificate lapses after 90 days, and a run that clears no depth drops it to depth 1 the same day. Work it used to complete at depth 3 now arrives as held items. A team trained to absorb a normal queue may face several times the volume overnight. Enough trained reviewers is what makes that survivable.
Separation. The person who wrote the agent's brief should not be the only person who reviews its output. They will read its drafts the way they intended them, not the way a customer or auditor will. A second reviewer catches what the builder cannot.
A fuller view of staffing review at scale is in how many people you need to supervise AI agents.
What does that look like for a real agent?
Take an accounts payable agent at a mid-sized distributor. It reads invoices, drafts matches, posts matched invoices within tolerance at depth 3, and holds every payment release.
The finance operations manager owns it. The accounts payable supervisor is deputy. Three clerks review held items across the week. The financial controller approves releases above the clerks' limit. A finance systems analyst built the agent's brief and runs its certification. An internal auditor samples the record each quarter. That is seven people, all trained, for one agent. It sounds like a lot until the week two clerks are off and the agent's certificate is due.
Does the number grow with each new agent?
Not one for one. Once a team has trained reviewers, a second agent in the same function often shares them. What grows is the owner and builder work, and the need for reviewers who understand each agent's particular depths and limits. Scaling past a handful of agents is its own problem, covered in how to scale from one AI agent to many.
The people who wrote the original process are often the best teachers for the agent and its reviewers; the case is made in why the people who wrote the process should teach the agent and the reviewers. And the review queue itself is where most of the learning happens, as argued in the review queue is a classroom.
Where the Academy fits
Pryme Intelligence Academy maps onto these roles. Foundations, about four hours, suits anyone around the agent. Operator, about 14 hours plus a two-week practicum, is for owners, deputies, reviewers and approvers. Builder, about 24 hours plus a capstone agent certified in Attest to depth 2 or higher, is for whoever designs and certifies it. For teams, an admin view shows each person's progress, certificates and expiry dates.
Questions people ask
Can one person run an agent in a very small business?
They can run it at depth 1 or 2, where every action is drafted for a person. Running it at depth 3 or above with one person leaves no cover and no check.
Do people outside the team need any training?
Anyone who receives the agent's output or handles complaints about it should take a short foundations course. They should know what the agent may do and how to raise a concern. The full sequence is in training teams for AI agents.
How do you keep everyone's training current?
Track expiry dates for people's certificates alongside the agent's. A reviewer whose certificate has lapsed should lose approval rights until it is renewed, if the business ties the two together.