# Delegated work

A bounded job a person or organisation authorises software to carry forward: an objective, the context and authority to pursue it, the action taken, the evidence left behind, and somebody who stays accountable for the result.

Source: https://aecon.ai/glossary/delegated-work
Updated: 2026-09-15

## In practice

“Prepare a sourced competitor briefing on these five companies by tomorrow, using approved public sources, spending no more than A$25 on external data, and route it to an analyst before it reaches the client.”

## The distinction

The unit is the job, not the agent. One job may use several models, tools and suppliers; one agent may carry many unrelated jobs. Counting agents describes software supply, while counting delegated jobs describes work.

## Six fields make a job governable

A request becomes delegated work when six things can be named. Miss one and the job becomes difficult to run, price or repair.

| Field | What it establishes |
| --- | --- |
| **Objective** | The result to produce and the condition that ends the job |
| **Context** | The information the system may use, and how current it must be |
| **Authority** | What it may see, decide, change and spend, and for how long |
| **Action** | The effect it is permitted to have outside the model |
| **Evidence** | What it received, chose, called and produced |
| **Accountability** | Who owns the outcome and how a problem gets corrected |

"Help with sales" fails the test. "Prepare a sourced briefing on this prospect before tomorrow's meeting" passes it, because a deliverable, a subject and a deadline are all present.

## Why the job rather than the agent

An agent is a component. A job is a thing a customer buys, a manager approves and a finance system reconciles.

That difference matters commercially. Ten model calls, three retries and one discarded draft can all belong to one briefing. The customer did not receive ten briefings. A supplier that bills the calls and a buyer who values the briefing are measuring different quantities, and the offer has to say which one the price follows.

## Delegation does not move the obligation

Software can research, draft, buy a bounded input and route a result for approval. The advisory firm still owns accuracy, delivery and correction. The analyst still accepts or rejects the draft.

Delegation changes how work is performed. It does not relocate responsibility, because the software has nothing of its own to lose and no standing to be held to account. Every delegated job therefore ends at a named person or organisation.

## Sources & context

- [New tools for building agents](https://openai.com/index/new-tools-for-building-agents/) — OpenAI, March 2025. Describes agents as systems that accomplish tasks on behalf of users; the operational framing behind the word tasks. Checked 2026-09-13.
- [Building effective agents](https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/building-effective-agents) — Anthropic, December 2024. Separates predetermined workflows from model-directed agents, and recommends the simplest sufficient pattern. Checked 2026-09-13.

## Related reading

- [Delegation](https://aecon.ai/glossary#delegation)
- [Authority](https://aecon.ai/glossary#authority)
- [AI agent](https://aecon.ai/glossary/ai-agent)
- [Agentic economy](https://aecon.ai/glossary/agentic-economy)
- [Accepted job](https://aecon.ai/glossary/accepted-job)