Agentic Quality Assurance
Autonomous AI Agents for Next Generation Quality Management
Lori Barnhill
About the Book
Quality Has Always Been the Standard. Now It Must Be Built Into the Machine.
Drawing on nearly three decades of civil service experience, Lori Barnhill examines what it truly means to build quality into autonomous AI systems. Written through the lens of the Department of War — formerly the Department of Defense — this book applies the hard-won lessons of institutional quality management to the most consequential technology of our time.
Agentic AI systems are already making decisions, executing tasks, and operating at scale. But without rigorous quality frameworks, they are systems without standards — powerful, unpredictable, and unaccountable. This book provides the architecture for change: how to embed quality checks, verification loops, and accountability structures directly into AI agent design.
Rooted in Deming's principles and tested against the demands of real-world government operations, the frameworks in this book are not theoretical. They are operational. And they apply wherever AI is being deployed — defense, healthcare, finance, infrastructure, or enterprise.
Who It's For
This Book Was Written for Everyone Who Knows That 'Good Enough' Is Never Good Enough
AI Developers
Building the systems that will define the next decade of human-machine interaction.
AI Ethicists
Demanding accountability, transparency, and verifiable standards in autonomous systems.
Quality Assurance Professionals
Carrying the discipline of quality into the age of intelligent automation.
Deming Followers
Recognizing that continuous improvement and systemic thinking are more critical than ever.
Policy Makers
Shaping the governance frameworks that will determine how AI operates in the public interest.
Anyone Who Remembers What Quality Means
Because the standards that built reliable systems in the past must be the foundation of reliable AI in the future.
About the Author
Lori Barnhill
Lori Barnhill brings nearly thirty years of civil service experience to one of the most urgent questions in technology today: how do we ensure that AI systems meet the same rigorous standards we demand of any critical system?
Her career spans quality management, systems oversight, and institutional governance within the Department of War — formerly the Department of Defense. She has spent decades working at the intersection of process, accountability, and performance, applying the principles of Deming and modern quality management to some of the most complex operational environments in the world.
Agentic Quality Assurance is her call to action — a practitioner's guide for a world that can no longer afford to deploy AI without asking: is it good enough?
The Standard Has Been Set.
Now it's time to apply it.
Agentic Quality Assurance is available now on Amazon. Whether you're building AI systems, governing them, or demanding better from them — this is the book for you.