AI terms, in plain English

Every term below comes with two things: what it actually means, and a sentence you can say out loud in a meeting without hedging. Free to read, no account needed.

• Test-time compute

  Listen

  Letting the AI "think longer" at the moment you ask it a question, instead of just relying on how much it learned in training.

  Say this in a meeting

  “The gains here are coming from test-time compute — the model reasons for longer before answering, which is why quality is jumping without a bigger model.”

  emerging

• Reasoning model

  Listen

  A newer type of AI that pauses to work through a problem step by step before answering, like showing its scratch work.

  Say this in a meeting

  “For anything analytical we should default to a reasoning model — it's slower but the answers hold up under scrutiny.”

  emerging

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  Listen

  Software that can do things we used to think only humans could do — like understanding language, spotting patterns, or making decisions.

  Say this in a meeting

  “When we say AI, we mean systems that learn from data instead of being explicitly programmed for every rule.”

  marketingoperationssaleshrfinancelegalgeneral

• Machine Learning

  Listen

  Instead of writing rules by hand, you show the computer lots of examples and it figures out the patterns itself.

  Say this in a meeting

  “This isn't hard-coded — it's a machine learning model, so it improves as we feed it more of our own data.”

  general

• Large Language Model (LLM)

  Listen

  A very large AI trained on huge amounts of text that can read, write, and answer questions in plain language.

  Say this in a meeting

  “The tool is powered by an LLM, so it can summarize documents and draft responses in natural language.”

  general

• Prompt

  Listen

  The instructions or question you type into an AI so it knows what to do.

  Say this in a meeting

  “Let's tighten the prompt — clearer instructions usually give us more consistent output.”

  general

• Hallucination

  Listen

  When an AI confidently makes something up that sounds right but isn't actually true.

  Say this in a meeting

  “We need a human review step here — LLMs can hallucinate facts, especially about our internal policies.”

  legalgeneral

• Generative AI

  Listen

  AI that creates new things — text, images, code, audio — instead of just classifying or predicting.

  Say this in a meeting

  “This is a generative AI use case, so we should think about brand voice and IP review, not just accuracy.”

  marketinggeneral

• Chatbot

  Listen

  A conversational interface, often powered by an LLM, that people can talk to instead of clicking through menus.

  Say this in a meeting

  “Instead of another form, let's put a chatbot in front of the workflow so employees can just ask.”

  operationshrgeneral

• Model

  Listen

  The actual "brain" of an AI system — a file full of learned patterns that turns inputs into outputs.

  Say this in a meeting

  “The model itself is what we're licensing here; everything else around it is our own product.”

  general

• Natural Language

  Listen

  Everyday human language, like the sentences we're speaking now, as opposed to code or structured data.

  Say this in a meeting

  “The advantage is our team can query it in natural language — no SQL or filters required.”

  operationsgeneral

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