Stay up to date with industry terms
The AI industry moves fast, and so does the terms used to describe it. This glossary helps you stay up-to-date with the evolving market language.
Agentic reasoning
Agentic Reasoning enables AI agents to break down complex goals, make context-driven decisions, learn from outcomes, and self-correct, transforming them from reactive tools into proactive, autonomous problem-solvers.
Graph of Thoughts (GoT)
Graph of Thoughts (GoT) is an advanced reasoning framework that extends structured thinking beyond linear or tree-based approaches. It represents reasoning as a graph, allowing multiple interconnected paths and dependencies between ideas. This enables more flexible and efficient exploration of complex problems where relationships between steps are not strictly hierarchical.
Tree of Thoughts (ToT)
Tree of Thoughts (ToT) is a reasoning approach where an AI model explores multiple possible solution paths in a structured, tree-like format before selecting the best outcome. Instead of generating a single response, the model evaluates different intermediate steps and branches. This improves problem-solving for complex tasks that require planning and multi-step reasoning.
AI governance
AI governance refers to the frameworks, policies, and controls used to manage how AI systems are developed, deployed, and monitored. It ensures that AI operates in a secure, compliant, and ethical manner by addressing risks such as bias, data privacy, and accountability. AI governance provides oversight and auditability, which are critical for enterprise adoption.
Enterprise search
Enterprise search is the ability to retrieve and surface relevant information from across an organization’s data sources, including documents, databases, and applications. It uses indexing, retrieval models, and often AI to deliver accurate and context-aware results. Enterprise search helps employees access knowledge quickly, improving productivity and decision-making.
Adaptive RAG
Adaptive RAG (Adaptive Retrieval-Augmented Generation) is a method that dynamically adjusts how and when external information is retrieved based on the complexity of a query. Instead of using a fixed retrieval process, it determines whether retrieval is needed and selects the appropriate strategy, such as no retrieval, single-step retrieval, or multi-step retrieval. This improves efficiency, reduces unnecessary computation, and ensures better response quality across different query types.
Self-RAG
Self-RAG (Self-Reflective Retrieval-Augmented Generation) is an approach where an AI system evaluates and refines its own retrieval and generation process during response creation. It retrieves information, assesses the relevance and quality of that information, and iteratively improves the output by validating or correcting its reasoning. This self-evaluation loop helps improve accuracy, reduce hallucinations, and ensure that responses are grounded in reliable data.
Tool calling
Tool calling is the ability of an AI model to interact with external tools, APIs, or systems to retrieve data or perform actions. It allows models to go beyond static responses by executing tasks such as fetching real-time information or triggering workflows. This capability enables AI systems to operate as active participants within applications rather than only generating text.
LLMOps
LLMOps (large language model operations) refers to the practices and tools used to deploy, manage, and monitor large language models in production. It covers the full lifecycle, including data preparation, model tuning, deployment, evaluation, and ongoing optimization. LLMOps ensures that AI systems remain reliable, scalable, and compliant while maintaining performance over time.
Agentic orchestration
Agentic orchestration is the process of coordinating AI agents, automation systems, and human inputs across workflows to achieve a defined outcome. It manages how tasks are distributed, executed, and monitored, ensuring agents operate within business rules and governance frameworks. This allows enterprises to run complex, multi-step processes with greater control, adaptability, and visibility.
MCP
Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that enables AI applications to connect with external data sources, tools, and systems through a unified interface. It standardizes how models access context, execute actions, and exchange information, allowing AI systems to operate beyond their training data. MCP simplifies integration, improves interoperability, and supports scalable, context-aware AI applications across enterprise environments.
Autoregressive model
An autoregressive model is a machine learning technique that predicts the next value in a sequence by learning from the values that came before it. The core idea is simple: what happens next is influenced by what has already happened. By identifying patterns in historical data, the model can make informed predictions about what comes next.
Zero-Shot learning
Zero-shot learning lets an AI handle tasks it hasn’t been explicitly trained on just by understanding the instructions. It’s like giving the model a prompt and having it figure things out without needing examples or retraining.
Vector search
Vector search finds information based on meaning, not just keywords. It compares “embeddings”,numerical representations of content, to return the most relevant results, even when the user’s words don’t exactly match the document.
Vector databases
A vector database is where those embeddings are stored and searched. Instead of matching text directly, it compares how similar the ideas behind different pieces of content are making search more accurate, especially for open-ended queries.
Unsupervised learning
Unsupervised learning is when AI is trained on data without labels. It learns by spotting patterns, clusters, or relationships on its own, which is useful for organizing data or discovering hidden insights without manual setup.
Unstructured data
Unstructured data is information that doesn’t follow a fixed format, like emails, chat logs, PDFs, images, or audio files. It’s messy but rich with insights, and AI systems are designed to make sense of it by extracting meaning, context, and intent.
Transparency
Transparency means you can see and understand how an AI system came to its answers. It helps build trust, especially in business settings where decisions need to be explained, tracked, and improved over time.
Transformer
The transformer is a type of AI model architecture that made today’s powerful language models possible. It helps the AI understand how words relate to each other in a sentence so it can generate responses that make sense.
Transfer learning
Transfer learning is when an AI takes what it learned from one task and uses it for another. It’s like reusing knowledge, saving time, effort, and making the model smarter, faster.
Training data
Training data is what an AI system learns from. It could be text, documents, conversations, anything that teaches the model how language works and what to expect. The better the training data, the smarter and more accurate the AI becomes.
Toxicity
Toxicity is when AI says something harmful, offensive, or inappropriate. It’s not always intentional, it’s just repeating patterns it has seen. That’s why filters and safeguards are used to catch and prevent it from showing up in responses.
Toolformer
A taxonomy is just a fancy word for a well-organized list of categories. It helps the AI organize things in a meaningful way, like types of customer issues, product categories, or departments, so it knows how to respond and route information correctly.
Tokens
Tokens are the chunks of text that an AI model reads or writes, like words or parts of words. The more tokens you give the model, the more context it has to work with.
Testing
Testing is how we make sure AI works as expected before it goes live. It includes checking accuracy, behavior, and edge cases, so there are no surprises when customers or teams start using it.
Temperature
Temperature is a setting that controls how “creative” the AI gets. A low temperature keeps responses focused and predictable. A higher one makes answers more diverse, but sometimes less accurate.
Synthetic data generation
Synthetic data generation involves creating artificial data, like text, images, or records, to train or test AI models. It’s especially useful when real data is limited, sensitive, or needs to be balanced for fairness.
Supervised learning
Supervised learning is when an AI model is trained using labeled data, examples where the input and correct output are known. It’s widely used for tasks like classification, prediction, and intent recognition.
Sparse retrieval
Sparse retrieval relies on traditional keyword matching methods to retrieve content. It’s fast and effective for exact matches, but often less flexible than semantic search when queries are vague or varied.
Software Development Kit (SDK)
An SDK is a collection of tools, libraries, and documentation that helps developers build or extend AI applications. It provides everything needed to integrate with APIs, build custom features, or embed AI into enterprise workflows.
Small Language Models (SLMs)
Small Language Models are compact AI models trained for specific tasks or domains. They’re faster, more cost-effective, and easier to control than massive models, making them ideal for use cases that require speed, privacy, or domain precision
Short-Term memory
Short-term memory stores recent inputs, decisions, or conversational context that an agent uses during an active session. It helps the system stay coherent and relevant within a task, without mixing it up with long-term data or unrelated past interactions.
Sequence modeling
Sequence modeling is the process of analyzing or predicting patterns in ordered data, like sentences, clickstreams, or time-series events. It’s essential for tasks where the order of information affects the outcome, such as language processing or behavior prediction.
Sentiment analysis
Sentiment analysis helps AI understand emotions behind text, whether it’s positive, negative, or neutral. It’s useful in support, marketing, and feedback systems to assess customer tone and urgency.
Semantic search
Semantic search goes beyond keywords to understand the meaning behind a query. It helps AI systems find relevant content, even if the wording doesn’t exactly match, by looking at intent, context, and relationships between concepts.
Search and Data AI (Kore.ai)
Search and Data AI is Kore.ai’s intelligent framework for enterprise knowledge discovery. It brings together agentic RAG, semantic understanding, multi-source connectors, and hybrid vector search to turn scattered internal data, like documents, databases, or web content, into context-rich answers.
Scaffolding
Scaffolding is a technique where a complex task is broken into smaller steps that the AI can reason through, often using intermediate prompts, models, or agents. It’s helpful for multi-step reasoning, planning, and decision-making.
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
RBAC restricts access to features or data based on a user’s role, like admin, agent, or end user. It’s essential in enterprise AI platforms for protecting sensitive information and enforcing security policies across teams.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
RPA automates repetitive tasks using bots that mimic human actions, like clicking buttons or copying data between systems. While powerful for rule-based tasks, it lacks the reasoning and flexibility of agentic AI, which can adapt to changing goals and context.
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
RAG is an AI method combining retrieval, augmentation, and generation fetching trusted external data, enriching user queries with context, and producing grounded, accurate responses that reduce hallucinations, enhance transparency, and improve reliability for enterprise use cases requiring precision and traceability.
Responsible AI
Responsible AI means building and deploying AI systems that are ethical, transparent, fair, and aligned with human values. It covers things like avoiding bias, respecting privacy, and making sure decisions can be explained and trusted.
Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF)
RLHF combines reinforcement learning with human guidance. Instead of just learning from rules, the AI improves by watching how humans rate or correct its outputs, leading to responses that better match expectations and values.
Reinforcement learning
Reinforcement learning is a method where AI learns by trial and error, getting rewarded for good outcomes and penalized for bad ones. It’s useful for training agents to improve over time in dynamic or goal-driven environments.
Reasoning
Reasoning is the AI’s ability to think through a problem, break it into steps, and make informed decisions. It’s what separates reactive bots from intelligent agents that can handle ambiguity, follow goals, and adapt in real time.
Query optimization
Query optimization involves refining a query to make it more efficient, precise, or context-aware so the AI retrieves the best possible answers faster. This could include rephrasing, ranking priorities, or eliminating unnecessary noise in the input before processing it.
Prompt Pipelines
Prompt pipelines are structured sequences of prompts, logic, and decision steps that together drive a larger task. Think of them as reusable flows where each step builds on the last, helping AI systems complete end-to-end actions more reliably.
Prompt Engineering
Prompt engineering is the art of crafting instructions that guide an AI model’s behavior. How a prompt is written can shape the tone, format, and accuracy of the response, making it a tool for improving results without retraining the model.
Prompt Chaining
Prompt chaining links multiple prompts together using the output of one as the input to the next to guide the model through multi-step reasoning or tasks. It helps break down complex problems into manageable steps for more reliable outcomes.
Probabilistic Model
A probabilistic model makes decisions or predictions based on the likelihood of different outcomes. Instead of producing one “correct” answer, it weighs possibilities and selects the most likely one, making it useful for language, reasoning, and uncertain scenarios.
Pre-Trained Model
A pre-trained model is an AI system trained on large datasets that can be fine-tuned or used directly for specific tasks. It saves time and resources by offering a solid foundation that can be adapted quickly to new use cases.
Parameters
Parameters are internal values a language model learns during training. They control how the model interprets language, forms associations, and generates responses. In simple terms, more parameters generally mean the model can capture more complexity, but also requires more computation.
Open-Source LLMs
Open-source LLMs are large language models that are freely available for anyone to use, customize, or deploy. They offer flexibility and transparency, making them a strong option for enterprises that want control over model behavior, cost, or deployment environment.
Ontology
An ontology is a structured framework for organizing knowledge, defining relationships among concepts, entities, and categories within a domain. In AI, it enables context‑aware reasoning by showing how things connect, improving accuracy, consistency, and meaningful responses.
Omni-Channel
Omni‑channel means delivering a seamless AI experience across chat, voice, email, web, and mobile, maintaining context and continuity. It ensures consistent support, letting users resume interactions smoothly across channels, enhancing convenience, reliability, and customer satisfaction.
No-Code
No‑code platforms let users build AI applications, workflows, or automations without coding. Using visual interfaces like drag‑and‑drop tools, they empower business teams to quickly launch and manage solutions, saving time and reducing reliance on deep technical expertise.
Natural Language Understanding (NLU)
NLU is a subset of NLP focused on interpreting the meaning and intent behind what someone says or types. It helps AI systems figure out what the user wants, even if the phrasing is vague or unstructured, critical for driving accurate responses and actions.
Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Natural Language Processing is the broad field of AI that helps machines understand, interpret, and work with human language. It covers everything from analyzing text to extracting meaning, enabling systems to handle unstructured input like messages, emails, or voice commands.
Natural Language Generation (NLG)
NLG is the process of turning structured data or internal knowledge into clear, human-sounding language. Whether it’s summarizing a report or answering a user question, NLG helps AI systems respond naturally and intelligently in real time.
Multimodal AI
Multimodal AI refers to systems that can understand and process more than one type of input, like text, images, audio, or video. It enables richer, more flexible interactions across a wider range of tasks and channels.
Multi-Vector Search
Multi-vector search improves retrieval by using more than one semantic representation to find relevant information. It helps surface better results by capturing different meanings or perspectives behind a single query.
Multi-Agent Systems
A multi-agent system is a setup where several autonomous AI agents collaborate, communicate, and share context to solve a broader goal. It’s like a digital team, each agent with its own role working towards the same objective.
Multi-Agent orchestration
Multi-agent orchestration is the coordination of multiple specialized AI agents working together to complete complex tasks. Each agent focuses on its part retrieving data, executing actions, or reasoning and the orchestration layer ensures everything flows smoothly.
ModelOps
ModelOps is the practice of managing the full lifecycle of AI models, from training and testing to deployment, monitoring, and retirement. It’s essential for keeping models secure, updated, and aligned with business needs over time.
Model router
A Model Router decides which AI model to use for a specific task. Based on factors like prompt type, confidence score, or domain, it directs requests to the best-fitting model ensuring the system stays efficient, accurate, and scalable.
Memory
Memory allows AI systems to retain and reuse information over time, like past interactions, user preferences, or task history. It helps the AI stay context-aware, make better decisions, and maintain continuity across conversations or workflows.
Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA)
LoRA is a technique for fine-tuning large models efficiently, without needing to retrain the whole thing. It makes updates lighter, cheaper, and easier to deploy—perfect for customizing foundation models in enterprise settings.
Low-Code
Low-code platforms let users build AI-powered applications or automations using visual interfaces instead of traditional coding. It helps business users and non-engineers create workflows, bots, or integrations quickly and safely.
Long-Term memory
Long-term memory allows AI agents to remember information across interactions like user preferences, past actions, or previous answers. It helps make responses more personalized, consistent, and goal-aware over time.
Large Language Model (LLM)
A Large Language Model (LLM) is an advanced AI trained on massive text datasets to understand, process, and generate human language. It analyzes queries, summarizes, completes tasks, and adapts to contexts, delivering coherent, accurate, and scalable language‑driven output.
LangOps
LangOps (Language Operations) is the practice of managing and optimizing how language models are deployed and used across the enterprise. It includes performance tuning, governance, training data management, and model versioning essentially DevOps for LLMs.
LLM Orchestration
LLM orchestration manages how large language models interact with tools, memory, APIs, and agents. It ensures models don’t just generate text but operate as part of a system that can reason, retrieve, act, and adapt across workflows.
Knowledge task
A knowledge task is when AI finds, understands, and delivers information like answering policy questions or summarizing documents. It relies on connecting to the right sources, retrieving relevant content, and presenting it clearly for accurate, helpful outcomes.
Knowledge graphs
Knowledge Graphs organize information into connected nodes and relationships, like a map of how concepts, entities, and data points relate to each other. This helps the AI reason more intelligently, so it understands how they connect.
Knowledge base
A Knowledge Base is a centralized repository of information FAQs, how-to articles, documents, and internal guides that the AI can use to answer questions or support tasks. It’s like the AI’s internal library, helping it respond with consistent, approved information.
Joint learning
Joint learning trains multiple AI tasks or models simultaneously, sharing knowledge across tasks like intent detection and entity recognition to improve accuracy in complex systems like virtual assistants.
Intent
An intent is what a user wants to accomplish, like resetting a password or checking a balance. Accurately detecting intent enables AI to determine the right response, action, or workflow to trigger.
Instruction-Tuning
Instruction-tuning trains AI models to follow human instructions effectively, teaching them to respond in expected ways, whether answering clearly, summarizing concisely, or taking action when asked.
Ingestion
Ingestion is the process of importing external data like documents, PDFs, or knowledge base articles into an AI system, making content searchable, retrievable, and usable in conversations or workflows.
Indexing
Indexing organizes and stores data so AI can quickly search and retrieve it, ensuring documents, transcripts, or knowledge articles are structured for fast, accurate information retrieval.
In-Context Learning (ICL)
In-Context Learning enables AI models to understand and handle new tasks by reading examples within the prompt, without retraining, making it ideal for custom tasks and dynamic use cases.
Hyperparameter tuning
Hyperparameter tuning optimizes settings that control how an AI model learns, like learning rate or model size, improving accuracy, speed, and reliability without changing the model's core architecture.
Hybrid search
Hybrid Search combines keyword-based and semantic search to retrieve both exact matches and meaning-based results, delivering more relevant, complete answers especially for open-ended or complex queries.
Human in the loop
Human in the Loop keeps a person involved in AI decision-making for oversight, approvals, or intervention, balancing automation with control in workflows where accuracy, judgment, or compliance matter.
AI hallucination
A hallucination occurs when AI generates confident but factually incorrect output, leading to misleading answers or flawed actions. Grounding and validation are essential to keeping responses accurate and reliable.
Guardrails framework
Guardrails Framework sets boundaries around what AI can say or do, ensuring outputs are safe, compliant, and on-brand by blocking certain content, guiding tone, or restricting tool access.
Grounding
Grounding ensures AI agent outputs are based on trusted sources like enterprise documents or real-time data rather than guesswork, giving agents a reliable foundation for factual, relevant, and safe responses.
Graph-RAG
Graph-RAG combines retrieval-augmented generation with knowledge graphs, understanding relationships between data points rather than pulling isolated chunks, improving reasoning, context, and relevance in generated answers.
Generative AI
Generative AI refers to systems that create content like text, images, or code by learning patterns from data, generating new, dynamic output in real time rather than selecting from pre-set options.
GPT (Generative pre-trained transformer)
GPT is a family of generative language models pre-trained on massive datasets, capable of understanding and generating human-like text for applications ranging from chatbots to summarization and AI agents.
Frontier models
Frontier Models are the most advanced AI systems available, pushing the boundaries of reasoning, planning, and autonomous action. Typically massive and multimodal, they remain in research or tightly controlled release.
Foundation models
Foundation Models are large, general-purpose AI models trained on massive datasets, adaptable to many tasks like summarization, question answering, or classification through fine-tuning or prompting.
Fine-Tuning
Fine-tuning trains a general AI model on specific data to align it with a particular tone, vocabulary, or industry, making it more accurate and relevant for targeted use cases.
Few-Shot learning
Few-shot learning enables AI models to understand new tasks from just a handful of examples provided in the prompt, eliminating the need for retraining and offering speed and flexibility at scale.
Federated learning
Frontier Models are the most advanced AI systems available, pushing the boundaries of reasoning, planning, and autonomy. Typically massive and multimodal, they are often in research or tightly controlled release.
FAQ
In AI, an FAQ refers to pre-trained question-answer pairs used by virtual assistants to deliver fast, accurate responses to common queries without requiring full conversations or complex workflows.
Explainable AI (XAI)
Explainable AI reveals why an AI made a decision rather than leaving it opaque, building trust in high-stakes industries like finance and healthcare where transparency and accountability are essential.
Ethical AI
Ethical AI means building systems that are fair, responsible, and aligned with human values, avoiding harmful bias, protecting privacy, and ensuring AI is deployed in ways that go beyond just business goals.
Entity extraction
Entity Extraction identifies and pulls key details from user inputs, like "March" and "invoice" from a sentence, helping AI accurately route tasks and understand what the user needs.
Entity
An entity is a specific piece of information the AI is trying to extract like a person’s name, a date, or an account number. Think of it as a key detail that makes a vague request actionable.
Enterprise RAG
Enterprise RAG combines intelligent retrieval with LLM-generated responses, pulling answers from internal knowledge bases and documents while ensuring accuracy, brand alignment, security, and full traceability.