Terms & explanations
Our knowledge base with plain-language explanations of common terms from software development and IT.
Agentic workflow
An agentic workflow is a process where an AI system knows the goal but works out the route itself, breaking the task into steps and calling tools along the way.
AI agent
An AI agent breaks a goal into steps on its own, uses tools such as databases or inboxes to carry them out, and hands over to a person once its remit ends.
AI governance
AI governance is the set of rules defining who may use AI for what, which data may flow where, and who is accountable for the results.
AI Overviews
AI Overviews are Google's generated answer boxes above the search results. They answer the question directly, changing how much traffic search actually passes on.
AI pilot
An AI pilot tests on one real process whether an AI application holds up in daily operation. It ends in a decision, not a demo.
Answer engine
An answer engine responds to a question with composed prose instead of a list of links. ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews all work this way.
Chatbot
A chatbot is an interface for talking to a system in conversation form. What it can actually do depends less on the language model than on what it is connected to.
Context window
The context window is how much text a language model can consider at once in a single request. It bounds task size, cost and answer quality.
Embedding
An embedding turns text into a list of numbers in which texts with similar meaning sit close together. It is the basis of every semantic search.
EU AI Act
The EU AI Act is Europe's AI regulation. It sorts AI systems by risk and attaches obligations to each tier, from transparency through to documented human oversight.
Fine-tuning
Fine-tuning trains a pre-trained language model further on your own examples, so it solves one task reliably in a fixed format or tone.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
GEO is the work of appearing in answers from AI systems such as ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews. What counts is not ranking position but whether the brand gets cited.
What work could agents take off your team?
Bring one recurring workflow or a product idea. Thirty minutes, an honest assessment, a clear next step.