Explained simply
Terms that are suddenly everywhere – answered briefly, with an everyday example and sources.
16 pages
A
- AI hallucination
- An AI hallucination is a false or invented statement that an AI chatbot phrases as confidently as if it were true, such as a wrong date, a made-up quote or a source that does not exist.why AI makes things up and how to check answers
- AI token
- A token is a small piece of text, such as a word, part of a word, a punctuation mark or a single character, that an AI splits every text into. In AI, prices, conversation length and usage limits are measured in tokens.what tokens are and why they set prices and limits
- AI watermark
- An AI watermark is an invisible marker that an AI service embeds in a generated image, video, audio clip or text so that verification software can later recognise that the content was created or edited with AI.SynthID, Content Credentials and how to check an image
C
- Context window
- The context window is the amount of text an AI can take into account at the same time in a single conversation, meaning your messages, uploaded files and its own answers. It is measured in tokens.how much AI remembers in a conversation
D
- Decision model
- A decision model is an AI that does not produce text but, for a question with fixed answer options, outputs a probability for each option. This makes it very fast and cheap, but it can only choose between the given answers.the AI that doesn't write but chooses
- Diffusion model
- A diffusion model is an AI that creates images, videos or sounds by working a clear result out of random noise step by step, often guided by a text description.how AI turns noise into images and videos
F
- Fine-tuning
- Fine-tuning is the further training of a finished AI model on a smaller collection of your own examples, so that its internal numerical values change and it handles a specific task more reliably in a fixed style or format.how it differs from prompting and RAG
M
- Model Context Protocol (MCP)
- The Model Context Protocol is an open standard for connecting AI assistants such as Claude or ChatGPT to other software and data sources, for example your calendar, notes or files. Think of it as a universal plug for AI.what the Model Context Protocol is and what it means for you
- Multimodal AI
- Multimodal AI is artificial intelligence that can process and combine different kinds of information, such as text, images, spoken language, sound and video.when AI can see, hear and speak
N
- NPU
- An NPU (neural processing unit) is a special component in the processor that handles AI tasks directly on the device faster and more efficiently than the regular main processor.what the AI chip in Copilot+ PCs and Macs does and whether you need one
O
- Open-weight model
- An open-weight model is an AI model whose trained weights the maker releases for download, so it can run and be adapted on your own hardware; the training data and training code usually remain unpublished.how open AI models differ from open source and ChatGPT
P
- Prompt injection
- Prompt injection is an attack in which injected instructions change an AI's behaviour so that it does something unwanted. The instructions can be typed directly into the chat or hidden indirectly in web pages, emails or documents.how hidden commands hijack AI assistants and how to protect yourself
R
- RAG (retrieval-augmented generation)
- RAG is a technique in which an AI looks things up in a defined collection of documents before answering and bases its answer on the passages it finds, without the language model having to be retrained.how AI answers from your own documents
- Reasoning model
- A reasoning model is an AI that thinks internally in several steps before answering, breaking the task down and weighing up approaches. This helps with difficult tasks but takes longer and uses more computing power.when thinking mode in ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude is worth it
V
- Vibe coding
- Vibe coding is a way of building software in which you describe to an AI in everyday language what an app or website should do, and the AI writes the code without you reading it yourself.building apps by describing them, what it can do and where the risks are
- Voice cloning
- A voice clone is an AI-generated copy of a real voice that can speak any sentence as if the person themselves were speaking.how AI copies voices, what is allowed and how to protect yourself