What are AI Guardrails?
AI guardrails are safety mechanisms, rules, and constraints implemented to ensure AI systems behave appropriately and don't produce harmful, biased, or undesired outputs. They act as protective boundaries that keep AI behavior within acceptable limits.
Types of Guardrails
Input Guardrails
- Prompt injection detection
- Content filtering
- Input validation
- Rate limiting
- User authentication
Output Guardrails
- Content moderation
- PII detection and redaction
- Factuality checking
- Tone and style enforcement
- Response length limits
Behavioral Guardrails
- Topic restrictions
- Action limitations
- Escalation triggers
- Human-in-the-loop requirements
Implementation Approaches
Rule-Based
- Keyword blocklists
- Regex patterns
- Explicit policies
ML-Based
- Classification models
- Semantic similarity
- Anomaly detection
Hybrid
- Combine rules and ML
- Layered defense
- Context-aware filtering
Best Practices
- Defense in depth (multiple layers)
- Regular testing and red-teaming
- Monitoring and alerting
- Continuous improvement
- Clear escalation paths