---
id: "question-enforcing-ai-fiduciary-duty"
type: "open-question"
source_timestamps: ["§ 1. Treat AI Agents as Fiduciaries"]
tags: ["legal-enforcement", "accountability"]
related: ["concept-ai-fiduciary-duty", "entity-eu-ai-act", "entity-iso-iec-42001"]
resolutionPath: "Legal test cases establishing liability chains in AI agent failures, and the creation of specific regulatory bodies to oversee AI licensing and disciplinary processes."
sources: ["governance"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-governance"
originDay: 7
articleStem: "hbr-cl-88-can-ai-agents-be-trusted"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2025/05/can-ai-agents-be-trusted"
sourceTitle: "Can AI Agents Be Trusted?"
---
# How will fiduciary duty be enforced on software?

While the authors propose treating AI agents as fiduciaries (see [[concept-ai-fiduciary-duty]]), it remains unclear exactly who bears the ultimate legal liability when an autonomous agent breaches the duty: the foundational model developer (e.g., OpenAI), the agentic-software-layer developer, the hardware provider, or the end user who configured the agent's rules?

**Resolution path:** legal test cases establishing liability chains in AI-agent failures, plus specific regulatory bodies to oversee AI licensing and disciplinary processes. Adjacent regimes such as the [[entity-eu-ai-act-d7]] and standards like [[entity-iso-iec-42001]] may inform where obligations land and how breaches are audited.


## Related across articles
- [[question-ai-accountability-d7]]
- [[concept-ai-fiduciary-duty]]