# Kill switch (AI agents) **A kill switch is the tested way a named owner stops an AI agent rail from outside the model, so that new work stops and the job returns to a stated manual path.** *Part of the [Learn hub](https://privycdp.org/learn) and the [customer data glossary](https://privycdp.org/learn/glossary).* ## What it means in practice A kill switch answers four questions on the [rail card](https://privycdp.org/learn/glossary/rail-card): who may press it, what stops, what happens to work in progress and what keeps running. The control sits in a gateway or in the [Orchestrator](https://privycdp.org/ai/rails/orchestrator-agent), never in a prompt or among the agent's own tools. A good switch removes the action path and keeps the safety net. Disabling a pause rule, for example, leaves alerts flowing to a person. Stopping an agent should not stop the rule-based checks around it, such as consent enforcement. Some stops should fire without a person. A rail can pause on repeated rejections or a breached limit. Amazon SES shows the idea outside AI: sending can pause automatically, per configuration set or account, using CloudWatch alarms [1](#source-1). For high-risk AI systems, EU AI Act Article 14(4)(e) expects overseers to be able to interrupt a system "through a 'stop' button or a similar procedure" [2](#source-2). Annex III obligations apply from 2 December 2027. Marketing segmentation is not high-risk in itself, so take advice on your own jobs. The design is sound either way. A stop nobody has tried may fail when needed, so drill it and time it. The [roadmap's checklist](https://privycdp.org/ai/ai-marketing-operations-roadmap) suggests a drill in the last quarter. PrivyCDP's audit ledger records each AI-assisted action and the actor that authorised it, so a drill's review has a record to read. **Example (health insurance, illustrative):** a member-communications team sees false pauses from the [Anomaly Watcher](https://privycdp.org/ai/rails/agents/anomaly-watcher). The owner disables its pause rule. Alerts continue to a person, sends continue under normal controls, and the change goes on record. ## Related terms - [Rail card](https://privycdp.org/learn/glossary/rail-card): the Owner and kill switch field. - [Blast radius](https://privycdp.org/learn/glossary/blast-radius): what a stop contains. - [Orchestrator agent](https://privycdp.org/learn/glossary/orchestrator-agent): broadcasts a pause. - [Approval gate](https://privycdp.org/learn/glossary/approval-gate): stops work before it runs. ## Where it matters - [Agent rails, guardrails, policies and prompts](https://privycdp.org/ai/rails/rails-vs-guardrails-vs-policies): what actually enforces a stop. - [Marketing anomaly detection](https://privycdp.org/ai/rails/use-cases/campaign-anomaly-detection): an automatic pause and a person who resumes. Back to the [customer data glossary](https://privycdp.org/learn/glossary) or the [Learn hub](https://privycdp.org/learn). By Art Kukharenko Published: 2026-11-02 Updated: 2026-11-02 ## FAQ ### Who should be able to press the kill switch? The rail's named owner, plus an on-call role for out-of-hours incidents. The agent must never be able to press it, reverse it or remove it. ### What happens to work in progress? The rail card should say. Typically nothing new starts, runs waiting at a gate expire, and a person picks up the queue by hand. ## Sources 1. Amazon SES, automatically pausing sending: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/monitoring-sender-reputation-pausing.html 2. EU AI Act, Article 14: https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/14/ This entry is general information, not legal advice. ## Further reading - [Anomaly Watcher: An AI Agent That Explains Alerts and Pauses Sends](https://privycdp.org/ai/rails/agents/anomaly-watcher) - [AI Agents for Marketing Operations: The Playbook on Rails](https://privycdp.org/ai/rails/functions/marketing-operations) - [Marketing Anomaly Detection: Catch Campaign Problems With an AI Agent on Rails](https://privycdp.org/ai/rails/use-cases/campaign-anomaly-detection) - [AI Agent Rails: An Operating Model for Running Agents on Customer Data](https://privycdp.org/ai/rails) - [AI Agent Rail Card Template: YAML, Spreadsheet and JSON Schema](https://privycdp.org/tools/agent-rail-card)