Stewardship Model

The Arco operating model in which a single competent operator oversees an agentic stack, acting as architect and exception handler rather than executor.

The Stewardship Model is the defining differentiator of the Arco approach. Pure agentic deployment — where AI operates with no human oversight — is not yet appropriate across all task tiers. The Stewardship Model places one skilled operator in a supervisory role over the agentic stack.

The steward does not perform tasks. They design workflows, handle exceptions, and improve the system over time. This is categorically different from a traditional manager who coordinates human workers.

Key performance target: Mean Time to Intervention (MTTI) greater than 72 hours. If the system requires human input more frequently than once every three days, the architecture needs improvement, not more staff.

First used: March 2026