A financial assistant that summarizes market discussion could produce a persuasive but unsupported reason to trade. A guardrail is a control that limits what the system may receive, say, recommend, or do. It helps keep model behavior within security, suitability, and compliance boundaries; a capable model alone is not the complete safeguard. section 2.5.2 section 3.1.3
Place controls at the points where risk enters or leaves the workflow:
- At entry, authenticate users, enforce usage policies, and strip or mask personally identifiable information before a query reaches the model. section 3.2.1
- During generation, instruct the model to remain objective and give users access to the sources behind a summary. Grounding also depends on retrieving relevant, current information; RAG alone does not prevent wrong answers. section 2.5.2 section 3.1.3
- Before delivery or action, route generated responses through output guardrails and compliance checks. Restrict agents to specific tools with defined permissions and oversight rather than allowing unrestricted action. section 3.2.1 section 3.1.3
Guardrails also govern recommendations. In a retention workflow, an absolute regulatory hold can prevent an action from being recommended, while a configurable frequency limit can constrain outreach. Log governance decisions for compliance audits. Review outputs for selection bias as well as prohibited content: an objective-sounding summary can still give disproportionate prominence to some groups. section 14.5.2 section 2.5.2
Table 14.3 Governance guardrails by category
|
Category
|
Rule
|
Rationale
|
|---|---|---|
|
Frequency
|
Max 2 emails per week
|
Prevent communication fatigue
|
|
Content
|
No leveraged products to cluster 0
|
Suitability principle
|
|
Timing
|
No outreach during market hours
|
Avoid panic-inducing interruptions
|
|
Regulatory
|
Flag users under compliance review
|
Prevent interference with investigations
|
The governance table makes the controls inspectable: frequency, content, timing, and regulatory rules each state both a restriction and its rationale. section 14.5.2
