What is induction?

Induction is the structured introduction a new starter receives in their first days and weeks, covering the organisation, the role, the rules and the tools. In a team that works with AI agents, induction must also explain which work the agents do, what the newcomer will be asked to approve, and what they must never approve.

Why does induction matter in a team with agents?

A new starter's first assumptions about the agents stick. If induction treats the agent as a tool like any other, the newcomer will assume whatever it drafts is right. If it skips the agents entirely, they will learn from colleagues' shortcuts.

There is also a practical risk. A new joiner may be given access to the workspace on day one, before anyone has explained held actions or the stop control. Induction is where access and understanding should be lined up.

What should induction cover about agents?

Four things, in the first week:

1. What the agents do here. Which agents the team works with, at what depth, on which tasks.
2. What the newcomer will decide. The types of held action that will reach them, and when.
3. The red lines. Actions they must never approve, and who to call if they see one.
4. The record. That every verdict and every approval is filed, with their name on their decisions.

What induction should not try to do is make someone a qualified reviewer. That takes assessed practice and comes later.

What does induction look like in a real organisation?

Take a local council's revenues team, where an agent drafts council tax account changes. A new officer's induction spends one morning on the agent. She sees the queue, opens three held items with her supervisor, and is told plainly that she will not approve anything until she has passed the team's reviewer assessment. Her access is read-only until then. Whether local councils can use agents before staff are trained depends on exactly this kind of control.

A new joiner induction template for teams with agents lays out the week.

How is induction different from onboarding?

Induction is usually the first, formal part: welcome, policies, health and safety, systems access, the organisation's rules. Onboarding is longer and broader, covering everything until the person is fully productive, which for a reviewer of agent decisions can take weeks. Some organisations use the words interchangeably; the useful distinction is that induction informs, while onboarding builds ability.

Induction also cannot deliver training transfer on its own. Knowing the rules on day one is not the same as applying them on day thirty.

Which related terms should you know?

• Onboarding: the full period until the newcomer works independently.
• Behaviour change in training: whether what people learned shows in what they do.
• Refusal: a verdict newcomers often misread as a fault, which is why every refusal is a lesson for the team, not just the agent.

For what comes after induction, see training teams for AI agents.

Where the Academy fits

Pryme Intelligence Academy's Foundations track takes about four hours and suits the end of an induction week. It covers why agents must be governed, the decision chain and the workspace, and the badge is free with no expiry. It gives a newcomer the vocabulary before reviewer training starts.