Digital Employee Architecture: A Governance Framework for Embedding Autonomous AI Agents in Enterprises

Large language model (LLM) agents are increasingly performing tasks previously reserved for human workers. This paper introduces the Digital Employee Architecture (DEA), an eight-layer reference framework that integrates identity, role-scoped authority, structured memory, policy enforcement, and immutable audit traceability into a unified governance stack. The framework is grounded in NIST AI RMF 1.0, the EU AI Act 2024/1689, ISO/IEC 42001:2023, and Zero Trust principles.