Before AI can be trusted, someone has to hold the right to approve it, restrict it, and override it. Falkovia designs and documents that structure for regulated organizations.
Decision rights is the specific, name-level answer to a question most organizations have only answered in general terms: who actually holds authority over AI in your organization? Not a department. A named person, for each domain, with the standing to approve, restrict, or override, decided before the system goes live. Regulators, accreditors, and boards are converging on the same expectation, and the organizations whose governance holds under scrutiny are the ones that can answer with a name.
A decision rights framework maps three things before an AI system goes live: who can approve it for a given workflow, who can restrict or pause it, and who owns the outcome if it fails. This is proactive work, decided in advance. A policy describes what should happen. A decision rights framework names who is authorized to make it happen, and who answers when it does not.
Decision rights and the Human Authority Line™ are two views of the same architecture. Decision rights names who holds authority over a system. The Human Authority Line documents where, for that system, algorithmic recommendation ends and human judgment must remain non-delegable. Together they answer what a board, regulator, or accreditor actually wants to know: whether a named person holds real authority, decided in advance, and knows exactly where it applies.
The structure of a decision rights framework is consistent. What changes is the domain it has to cover. In healthcare, decision rights are mapped across clinical, diagnostic, and documentation workflows. In higher education, across admissions, grading, advising, and research. In investment firms, across underwriting, portfolio monitoring, and the AI governance of portfolio companies themselves. One architecture, calibrated to where your organization actually uses AI.
A named owner for every AI system in active use, decided before that system goes live. A documented Human Authority Line™ for each one. An escalation and override protocol that specifies what triggers a review, a pause, or a full stop, and who is reachable at each threshold. And a record a board, regulator, or accreditor can examine without your leadership team having to reconstruct it under pressure. See what an engagement produces
It is the documented answer to who can approve, restrict, or override AI for each domain in an organization. It names a person, not a department, for every AI system in active use, decided before that system goes live, and defines where their judgment must remain non-delegable. A decision rights framework is what turns a general AI policy into an accountable, defensible structure.
Falkovia designs AI decision rights frameworks for healthcare systems, universities, and investment firms, calibrated to the regulators, accreditors, and boards each sector answers to. The architecture, naming who holds authority and where human judgment must remain non-delegable, stays consistent across all three.
A policy describes what should happen. A decision rights framework names who is authorized to make it happen, and who is accountable when it does not. Regulators and accreditors are increasingly asking organizations to produce that name.
No. A policy sets the standard. A decision rights framework is what makes the policy operational: named owners, a documented Human Authority Line™, and an escalation protocol a board or regulator can examine. Organizations need both, and most already have the policy. The decision rights framework is usually the piece missing.
Every engagement begins with a confidential thirty-minute conversation about what your organization actually needs.
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