Agency AI Coordination Playbook
Coordination practices for agencies running AI agent teams that manage client advertising, call centers, project delivery, and sales pipelines. Battle-tested patterns from a 25-agent production deployment.
Escalation
Escalation Ladder with Teeth
Escalations must have deadlines and auto-actions. 24 hours: alert. 48 hours: direct message. 72 hours: warning with proposed action. Beyond 72 hours: auto-escalate to leadership with a specific recommendation. No more infinite "stalled" loops.
What goes wrong without this
An overspend alert fires. Nobody responds. The alert fires again the next day. And the next. After 2 weeks, someone notices the client burned through their monthly budget in 10 days.
Escalation Over Autonomy
By default, agents flag and recommend. The human decides. Only grant autonomy for specific, well-defined operations after the agent has proven reliability. Start every agent in "shadow mode" (read-only, report-only) before giving it write access.
What goes wrong without this
A new sales agent sends 50 cold emails with a pricing error. No human reviewed them. The mistake is discovered when prospects reply with confusion. Brand damage is done.
Founder Override Authority
The founder (or designated human) has final override on every agent decision. This is not a check on competence. It is a safety valve for context that agents cannot see: relationships, politics, timing, reputation. Document which decisions require human override vs which are fully autonomous.
What goes wrong without this
The sales agent sends a reactivation email to a former client who left on bad terms. The agent does not know the relationship history. The email reopens a wound and generates a complaint.
Shadow Mode Before Live Mode
Every new agent starts in read-only mode. It scans, analyzes, and reports, but cannot take actions. After 2-4 weeks of validated shadow mode output, the human promotes it to live mode with write access. Earn trust through demonstrated accuracy.
What goes wrong without this
A new project manager agent is deployed with full Accelo write access on day one. It creates duplicate tasks, assigns work to the wrong people, and marks projects complete that are not. Cleanup takes longer than the agent was supposed to save.
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