Tech terms, in plain English.
Short, clear explanations of terms people encounter in technology, business, work, and culture.
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35 terms
Agentic AI
AI systems that can independently pursue goals, make decisions, and take actions in dynamic environments, often with minimal human oversight.
AI Agent
An AI system that can pursue a goal by deciding what actions to take, using available tools or information, and responding to the results of those actions.
API
A defined interface that allows software systems to request data or functionality from one another.
ARR
Annual recurring revenue: the recurring subscription revenue a business expects from active customer contracts normalized to a one-year period.
Autonomous AI
AI systems designed to operate with limited ongoing human direction by making decisions and taking actions toward defined goals.
Cache
A temporary storage layer that keeps previously retrieved or computed data so future requests can be served faster.
CDN
A geographically distributed network of servers that caches and delivers content from locations closer to users.
Churn
The loss of customers, subscribers, or recurring revenue over a given period.
Cloud Computing
On-demand access to shared computing resources such as servers, storage, networking, and applications over a network.
Container
An isolated software environment that packages an application with the dependencies it needs to run consistently.
Context Window
The amount of information a language model can consider at one time when processing an input and generating a response.
Database
An organized collection of data managed so applications can store, retrieve, update, and query information.
Embeddings
Numerical representations that encode the meaning or features of data so computers can compare items by similarity.
Encryption
The cryptographic process of transforming readable data into ciphertext so it cannot be understood without the appropriate means to decrypt it.
ETL
A data integration process that extracts data from source systems, transforms it into a useful form, and loads it into a target system.
Fine-Tuning
Additional training applied to an existing model using a narrower dataset so the model becomes better suited to a specific task or behavior.
Hallucination
An AI output that presents incorrect, unsupported, or invented information as though it were reliable.
Inference
The process of using a trained AI or machine-learning model to produce a prediction, classification, or generated output from new input.
Kubernetes
An open-source platform for deploying, managing, and scaling containerized applications across clusters of computers.
LLM
A large language model is an AI model trained on large amounts of text to understand and generate language.
Load Balancer
A system that distributes incoming network traffic across multiple servers or application instances.
MFA
An authentication method that requires more than one distinct type of factor before access is granted.
Multimodal AI
AI that can work with more than one type of data, such as text, images, audio, or video.
OAuth
An authorization framework that allows an application to receive limited access to another service without requiring the user to share their password with that application.
Object Storage
A storage model that keeps data as individually addressable objects with metadata rather than organizing it primarily as files in folders or blocks on a disk.
RAG
A technique that gives an AI model access to external information at request time so it can generate responses using retrieved context.
REST API
An API designed around resources and the architectural constraints of Representational State Transfer, commonly using HTTP methods and URLs.
SaaS
A cloud service model in which customers use software applications operated by a provider rather than managing the underlying infrastructure themselves.
SDK
A collection of tools, libraries, documentation, and utilities that helps developers build software for a particular platform, service, or environment.
Serverless
A cloud application model in which the provider manages much of the underlying server infrastructure, scaling, and runtime operations for the developer.
SSO
An authentication approach that lets one account and sign-in be used to access multiple applications.
Tool Calling
A capability that lets an AI model request the use of an external tool, function, API, or service as part of completing a task.
Vector Database
A database designed to store, index, and search vector embeddings so similar items can be retrieved efficiently.
Webhook
An event-driven HTTP notification that one system sends to another when a specific event occurs.
Zero Trust
A security approach that continually evaluates access based on identity, device, context, and policy rather than assuming users or systems are trustworthy because of their network location.