Glossary
Definitions for the terms used across this site's training courses, its audit methodology and the two regulations every foundational programme is built against.
AI Fundamentals
Generative AI
AI that produces new text, images or other content in response to a prompt, rather than only classifying or retrieving what already exists. It is the…
Large Language Model (LLM)
The technology behind tools such as ChatGPT and Copilot: a model trained on a very large amount of text to predict and generate language. It is the…
Hallucination
A confident, plausible-sounding answer from an AI system that is factually wrong. Recognising one, and checking for one, is covered in every…
Grounding
Tying an AI system's answers to a specific set of source material, usually an organisation's own documents, rather than letting it answer from its…
Prompt
The instruction a person gives an AI system to produce a result. Writing effective prompts is one of the practical skills every core AI course…
Prompt Engineering
Structuring a prompt deliberately, rather than typing the first phrasing that comes to mind, so the result is closer to what is actually needed…
AI Agent
A system built to carry out a sequence of steps on its own, calling tools and making decisions along the way, rather than producing a single response…
Agentic AI
The approach rather than the individual system: designing work so that AI carries out a sequence of steps on its own instead of answering one prompt…
ChatGPT
OpenAI's generative AI assistant, used as a destination of its own rather than reached from inside the applications a business already runs. Four…
Microsoft 365 Copilot
Microsoft's generative AI assistant, reached from inside the applications a business already runs rather than as a separate destination, and grounded…
Claude
Anthropic's AI assistant, covered in the foundational courses as one of the leading chatbots alongside ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot. It runs as a…
Gemini
Google's AI assistant, covered in the foundational courses as one of the leading chatbots alongside ChatGPT, Claude and Copilot. The advanced…
Mistral Le Chat
Mistral's AI assistant, and one of the three named tools this catalogue teaches with a course of its own alongside ChatGPT and Microsoft 365 Copilot…
Perplexity
An AI tool that answers a question with a synthesised response and cites the sources it drew on, rather than returning a list of results. It is one of…
Chatbot
A tool you hold a conversation with, answering one prompt at a time. Any chatbot rests on three pillars (instructions, a knowledge base and tools),…
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
Giving a model a set of documents to search at the moment it answers, so the reply is drawn from that material rather than from its training alone. It…
Custom Instructions
Standing rules you set once so an AI tool applies them to every request, rather than restating the same context each time. They are the stable half of…
Memory
What an AI tool keeps from one conversation to the next, so it does not have to be told the same context again. It is the remembered half of…
Prompt Library
A kept set of prompts that have already been shown to work, reused instead of rewritten each time. It is the move from writing prompts to reusing…
Multimodal
A model that works across more than one kind of material (text, image, video and voice) rather than being built for one. Choosing between a broad…
AI Overviews
The AI-generated answer Google places above the ordinary search results. It answers the query directly, which is why more searches now end without a…
Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)
Writing and structuring content so that AI answer engines choose it as a source when they assemble a response. It builds on traditional SEO…
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
The practice of improving a page so that search engines can find it, rank it and show it to people searching. It is still the foundation, but…
Query Fan-Out
What happens when the model behind an AI answer breaks one search into several related sub-questions and picks a source for each, instead of…
E-E-A-T
The authority signals search engines describe for judging a source. The AI Overviews article spells them out as demonstrated experience,…
AI Citation
A page named as a source inside an AI-generated answer, on Google or in an assistant such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or Perplexity. It is tracked…
Branded Search
Searches that include a business's name. A generic query is the kind an AI Overview is most likely to answer completely on its own, so branded search…
AI brief
The context you give an AI tool before it starts, set out the way a new hire's brief would be. Incomplete context, not poor wording, was linked to 72%…
Drift
The slow slide in an AI tool's output quality, access and rules once nobody is looking after it. Unowned AI rarely fails loudly. It drifts.
AI Adoption
How far AI is actually used in daily work, as distinct from how many tools the business has bought. Organisations with formal AI training programmes…
Compliance
EU AI Act
The European Union's regulation governing how AI systems may be built and used, with obligations that scale to the risk a system carries. Assessed…
GDPR
The EU's data protection regulation, covering how personal data may be collected, used and stored. Relevant wherever an AI system touches personal…
High-Risk AI System
A system in the EU AI Act's higher risk classification. The Act's obligations attach to the system and its risk rather than to where it is hosted, so…
AI Literacy
The working understanding of AI that staff need to use it safely in their own jobs. Built around the specific workflows staff already do rather than…
AI Governance
The rules an organisation sets for how its staff may use AI: which tools are approved, where third-party tools stop, who stays responsible for a…
Data Protection
How personal data may be collected, used and stored wherever an AI system touches it. Taught as a set of practical choices rather than as law, and…
Shadow AI
AI tools and personal accounts that staff use for work without the business having approved or reviewed them. It is usually a bigger exposure than the…
Risk Classification
Sorting each AI use case by what happens if it goes wrong, who is affected, and whether it touches personal data, a regulated decision or…
AI Tool Inventory
A single list of the AI tools actually in use across a business, who uses each one, what for and on what kind of data. It includes tools staff pay for…
AI Ownership
One named person per AI tool who can answer four questions: what it is used for, who can use it, what data it can reach and when it was last checked…
Human in the Loop
A set-up in which a named person checks an AI result before it reaches a client, a decision or a public output. The check has to name who reviews, at…
AI Bias
Systematically unfair results from an AI system, such as screening out qualified candidates. In hiring it is a named concern, and recruitment and…
Deployer
The EU AI Act role of an organisation that uses a high-risk AI system, as opposed to building one. A deployer has duties of its own, and a vendor…
How we work
Scoping Conversation
The one way to start an audit or a bespoke training programme. Nothing is quoted or scheduled before it; it establishes which processes are in scope…
AI Audit
A diagnostic, not a named product: one five-step methodology (map your processes, document how they run, identify the opportunities, test a prototype,…
Opportunity Identification
The third step of an audit: documented processes are assessed for what AI can do reliably against them and, as importantly, what it cannot. Each…
AI Workflow
A single, specific process rebuilt around AI, with a clear input, a clear output and a defined point where a person reviews the result. It is one of…
Workflow Design
The stage between naming an opportunity and building anything: one process redrawn end to end, with its input, its output and the point where a person…
Automation
Handing a repeatable piece of work to a system instead of a person. An audit separates the processes worth automating from the ones that should be…
Business Outcomes
What an engagement is meant to leave behind: less repetitive work, with EU AI Act and GDPR obligations already built into how the work runs rather…
Core AI Course
A training session that runs to a published outline, rather than being built from scratch. Six of the courses in the catalogue are core courses.
Bespoke / In-House Training
A training programme built from an organisation's own processes and documents, rather than a published outline, scoped in a conversation.
SME
One of the two segments this business describes a client by, alongside Enterprise, used instead of naming the client on the case studies this site…
Enterprise
The larger of the two segments this business describes a client by, alongside SME.
Data Readiness
Whether the data an AI project depends on is governed, reachable and good enough to use. It is one of the most common weaknesses in an AI project, and…
Prototype
A working build of the highest-priority AI or automation opportunity, tested with the people who will use it on suitable data or realistic samples to…
Delegation Ladder
A four-level test that sorts each step of a workflow into Assist, Recommend, Execute or Never delegate. The level depends on volume, consequence,…