AI & Emerging Tech terms

112 AI & Emerging Tech terms explained in plain English.

Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS)Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) are electronic systems in vehicles that use sensors, cameras, radar, lidar, and AI to monitor the vehicle's environment and assist -- or in some cases automate -- driving tasks to improve safety and comfort.
Agent2Agent protocol (A2A)The Agent2Agent protocol (A2A) is an open standard that lets AI agents built by different vendors communicate with each other, share tasks, and exchange results.
Agentic WorkflowAn agentic workflow is a structured process in which an AI agent independently plans and executes a sequence of steps to complete a goal, using available tools and adapting its plan based on intermediate results.
AI BenchmarkingAI benchmarking is the process of evaluating AI models using standardised tests and datasets to measure their performance on specific capabilities -- reasoning, language understanding, mathematics, coding, factual knowledge, and safety.
AI Content DetectionAI content detection refers to tools and techniques designed to determine whether a piece of content -- text, image, video, or audio -- was generated by an artificial intelligence model rather than a human.
AI CopilotAn AI copilot (also called an AI assistant) is a software layer built on a large language model or similar AI system that works alongside a person to help them get things done faster.
AI EthicsAI ethics is the application of ethical principles -- fairness, transparency, accountability, privacy, and human dignity -- to the design, deployment, and governance of artificial intelligence systems.
AI guardrailsAI guardrails are rules, filters, and checks placed around an AI system to keep it safe, on-topic, and within policy.
AI JailbreakingAI jailbreaking refers to techniques that attempt to make an AI model produce outputs it would normally refuse -- such as generating harmful content, providing instructions for dangerous activities, or abandoning its assigned persona or restrictions.
AI Red-TeamingAI red-teaming is the deliberate, adversarial testing of AI systems by a team whose explicit goal is to find failures, harmful outputs, safety vulnerabilities, and capability limitations before the system is deployed.
AI WatermarkingAI watermarking is the practice of embedding hidden signals into AI-generated content -- text, images, audio, or video -- that allow the content to be identified as AI-generated when later inspected.
AlgorithmAn algorithm is simply a set of step-by-step instructions that tells a computer how to complete a task.
Anomaly DetectionAnomaly detection is the process of identifying data points, events, or observations that deviate significantly from an established baseline of normal behaviour.
Artificial IntelligenceArtificial intelligence, or AI, is when a computer or machine is designed to do things that normally require human thinking.
Augmented Reality (AR)Augmented reality, or AR, adds digital images, text, or information on top of what you see in the real world, usually through your phone's camera or special glasses.
AutomationAutomation is when technology performs tasks with little or no human involvement.
Autonomous AgentsAutonomous agents are AI systems that can pursue a goal over a series of steps, making decisions, using tools, and adapting their approach based on intermediate results -- without requiring a human to approve every individual action.
Autonomous NavigationAutonomous navigation is the capability of a robot, vehicle, or system to determine its position, plan a route to a destination, and execute that route through a real-world environment without human control -- avoiding obstacles, adapting to changes in the environment, and re-planning as needed.
Autonomous Vehicle (Self-Driving Car)An autonomous vehicle, commonly called a self-driving car, is a vehicle that uses sensors, cameras, and artificial intelligence to drive itself with limited or no human input.
Battery RangeBattery range is the maximum distance an electric vehicle (EV) can travel on a fully charged battery under a given set of conditions.
Bias in AIBias in AI refers to situations where an artificial intelligence system produces unfair or skewed results because of problems in its training data, design, or assumptions.
BlockchainA blockchain is a way of recording information digitally so that it is extremely difficult to change, hack, or cheat.
Carbon Footprint of ComputingThe carbon footprint of computing refers to the total greenhouse gas emissions associated with the technology sector -- from the energy used to run devices and data centres to the emissions embedded in manufacturing hardware.
Carbon OffsetA carbon offset is a credit representing one tonne of carbon dioxide (or equivalent greenhouse gas) removed from the atmosphere or prevented from being emitted, purchased by an organization or individual to compensate for their own emissions.
Carbon-Aware SchedulingCarbon-aware scheduling is the practice of timing or locating computing workloads to coincide with periods or places where the electricity grid has the lowest carbon intensity -- when more of the grid's electricity is coming from renewable sources like wind and solar.
Chain-of-ThoughtChain-of-thought (CoT) prompting is a technique for improving the reasoning quality of large language models by asking them to generate intermediate reasoning steps before producing a final answer, rather than jumping directly to the answer.
ChatbotA chatbot is a computer program that you can have a conversation with, usually by typing messages.
Circular Economy ElectronicsThe circular economy for electronics is a model that aims to keep devices, components, and materials in productive use for as long as possible -- through product design for longevity and repairability, manufacturer take-back and refurbishment programmes, secondary markets for used devices, component reuse, and responsible material recovery.
Cobot (Collaborative Robot)A cobot (collaborative robot) is a type of industrial robot specifically designed to operate safely in direct proximity to human workers -- sharing the same workspace, working on the same tasks, and interacting with people without requiring safety cages or barriers.
Computer-use agentA computer-use agent is an AI system that controls a computer or web browser the way a person does: it looks at screenshots, decides what to click or type, and repeats until a task is done.
Context windowA context window is the limit on how much text an AI language model can work with at one time, counting your instructions, any documents you attach, the conversation so far, and the model's own answer.
CryptocurrencyCryptocurrency is digital money that exists only on computers and uses special security technology called cryptography to verify transactions.
Data poisoningData poisoning is an attack where someone deliberately slips bad examples into the data used to train or fine-tune an AI model, so the model learns harmful behaviour, makes targeted mistakes, or responds to a hidden trigger.
Data-Centre Energy UseData centres are the physical facilities housing the servers, networking equipment, and cooling systems that power cloud computing, internet services, AI workloads, and digital communications.
Differential PrivacyDifferential privacy is a rigorous mathematical framework for privacy protection that works by adding carefully calibrated random noise to data, query results, or model outputs.
Diffusion modelA diffusion model is a type of generative AI that creates content by starting with random noise and gradually removing it, step by step, until a clear image, video, or sound appears.
Digital Twin (Operations)A digital twin is a dynamic virtual replica of a physical asset, process, or system that is continuously updated with real-time data from sensors on the physical counterpart.
E-WasteE-waste (electronic waste) refers to discarded electrical and electronic equipment -- everything from old smartphones, laptops, and tablets to televisions, printers, and home appliances.
EmbeddingsEmbeddings are lists of numbers, called vectors, that an AI model produces to represent the meaning of a piece of content such as a word, sentence, image, or document.
Energy StarEnergy Star is a voluntary energy efficiency certification programme run jointly by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Energy (DOE).
EV ChargingEV charging encompasses the equipment, infrastructure, and processes used to replenish the battery of an electric vehicle (EV).
Expert SystemAn expert system is an AI program that encodes the knowledge and decision-making logic of a human expert in a specific domain as a set of 'if-then' rules, and applies those rules to make decisions, diagnoses, or recommendations.
Explainable AI (XAI)Explainable AI (XAI) refers to a set of methods, techniques, and design principles that make the outputs and decision-making processes of AI systems understandable to the humans who use, oversee, or are affected by them.
Federated LearningFederated learning is a machine learning approach in which a model is trained collaboratively across many devices or data silos without the raw training data ever leaving those devices.
Fleet ManagementFleet management encompasses the processes, systems, and technology used by organizations to coordinate and optimize a fleet of vehicles or mobile assets -- including cars, vans, trucks, buses, construction equipment, or forklifts.
Function CallingFunction calling (also called tool use or tool calling) is a capability of modern large language models that allows them to invoke external functions, APIs, or tools as part of generating a response.
Generative AIGenerative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content — including text, images, music, code, and video — based on instructions or examples you give it.
Green CloudGreen cloud (sustainable cloud) refers to cloud computing infrastructure and services that are operated with a focus on minimizing environmental impact -- through high energy efficiency (low PUE), renewable energy sourcing, reduced water consumption, hardware longevity, and e-waste management.
Hallucination (AI Hallucination)An AI hallucination is when an artificial intelligence tool generates information that sounds confident and believable but is actually wrong or completely made up.
Industrial IoTIndustrial IoT (IIoT) is the application of internet-connected sensors, actuators, data analytics, and AI to industrial operations -- including manufacturing plants, power grids, oil and gas infrastructure, logistics networks, and agriculture.
Inference CostInference cost refers to the computing resources -- CPU, GPU, memory, network bandwidth, and energy -- consumed every time a trained AI model generates a prediction, response, or output.
Internet of Things (IoT)The Internet of Things, or IoT, refers to everyday physical objects that are connected to the internet and can send and receive data.
Knowledge GraphA knowledge graph is a structured way of storing information that represents real-world entities (people, places, organisations, concepts) and the relationships between them as a connected network.
KV cacheThe KV cache, short for key-value cache, is memory an AI language model uses to store calculations about earlier tokens in a conversation so it doesn't have to repeat them for every new word it writes.
Large Language ModelA large language model, or LLM, is a type of artificial intelligence that has been trained on enormous amounts of text so it can understand and generate human language.
LLM evaluation (evals)LLM evaluation, often called evals, is the practice of testing an AI application with a set of realistic inputs and scoring its outputs for accuracy, safety, tone, and other qualities.
LLM-as-a-judgeLLM-as-a-judge is a technique where an AI language model grades the outputs of another AI system, using instructions or a rubric that describe what a good answer looks like.
LoRA (low-rank adaptation)LoRA, short for low-rank adaptation, is a technique for customizing an AI model by training a small set of extra weights instead of changing the whole model.
Machine LearningMachine learning is a way for computers to learn from experience, much like how you get better at something the more you practice.
MetaverseThe metaverse is a broad term for immersive, shared virtual spaces where people can interact, work, play, and socialize using avatars or digital representations of themselves.
Mixed RealityMixed reality, or MR, blends the digital and physical worlds so that virtual objects can interact with real ones.
Mixture of experts (MoE)A mixture of experts (MoE) is an AI model design that divides part of the network into many smaller 'experts' and uses a router to send each token to only a few of them.
Model collapseModel collapse is a decline in AI model quality that can happen when models are trained repeatedly on content made by other AI models instead of by people.
Model Context Protocol (MCP)The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard for connecting AI assistants to outside tools and data, such as files, calendars, databases, and business apps.
Model DistillationModel distillation (or knowledge distillation) is a technique for creating a smaller, more efficient AI model (the 'student') that is trained to approximate the behavior of a larger, more capable model (the 'teacher').
Model DriftModel drift is the phenomenon where a machine learning model's performance degrades over time because the real-world data it encounters in production differs from the data it was trained on.
Neural NetworkA neural network is a type of computer system inspired by how the human brain works.
NFTAn NFT, or non-fungible token, is a unique digital certificate of ownership stored on a blockchain.
On-Device AIOn-device AI refers to machine learning models that run locally on a device -- a smartphone, laptop, smart speaker, or embedded sensor -- rather than sending data to a cloud server for processing.
Open-weight modelAn open-weight model is an AI model whose trained parameters, or weights, are released publicly so anyone can download, run, and often fine-tune it on their own hardware.
Over-the-Air Vehicle UpdatesOver-the-air (OTA) vehicle updates are software and firmware updates delivered wirelessly to a connected vehicle via the internet -- analogous to automatic software updates on a smartphone.
Power Management (Sleep States)Power management sleep states are the different levels of reduced-power operation that computers, smartphones, and other devices can enter when not actively being used.
Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE)Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) is the standard metric for data centre energy efficiency.
Predictive MaintenancePredictive maintenance is the practice of using data from sensors, operating logs, and machine learning models to forecast when a piece of equipment is likely to fail or require service -- allowing maintenance to be performed at the optimal time before failure, rather than after it (reactive) or on a fixed calendar schedule (preventive).
Programmable Logic Controller (PLC)A Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) is a specialised industrial computer designed to automate machinery, production processes, and physical systems in demanding environments.
Prompt (AI Prompt)A prompt is the instruction or question you type into an AI tool to tell it what you want.
Prompt cachingPrompt caching is a feature of AI APIs that saves the processed version of the beginning of a prompt, such as long instructions, a big document, or tool definitions, so later requests that start the same way don't have to process it again.
Prompt InjectionPrompt injection is a class of attack against AI language models in which malicious instructions are embedded in data that the AI is directed to process -- such as a document, email, web page, or user message -- causing the AI to override its original instructions and follow the attacker's instructions instead.
QuantizationQuantization is a model compression technique that reduces the size and memory requirements of a neural network by representing its weights and activations in lower-precision numerical formats.
Reasoning modelA reasoning model is a large language model trained to 'think' before it answers, generating an internal chain of reasoning steps, checking its work, and trying different approaches before giving a final response.
Refurbished TechRefurbished technology refers to previously used electronic devices -- smartphones, laptops, tablets, servers, networking equipment -- that have been returned to a manufacturer, retailer, or specialist refurbisher, inspected, cleaned, repaired where necessary, and resold at a lower price than new.
Renewable-Powered Data CentresRenewable-powered data centres are facilities that source their electricity primarily from renewable energy -- wind, solar, hydropower, or geothermal -- rather than fossil fuels.
RerankingReranking is a second pass in a search system: a fast first step finds a broad set of possibly relevant results, then a more careful AI model reads each one alongside the query and reorders them by how well they actually answer it.
Responsible AIResponsible AI is a broad term for the organizational practices, governance frameworks, technical standards, and cultural commitments that ensure AI systems are built and used in ways that are safe, beneficial, fair, and trustworthy.
Robot VacuumA robot vacuum is an autonomous robotic device that cleans floors without human operation, navigating around obstacles, mapping room layouts, and returning to its charging dock when finished or when its battery is low.
RoboticsRobotics is the field of designing, building, and using robots — machines that can perform tasks automatically or with minimal human guidance.
SCADASCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) is a category of industrial control system (ICS) used to remotely monitor, control, and record data from distributed physical infrastructure -- including power grids, water treatment plants, oil and gas pipelines, manufacturing facilities, and transport networks.
Scaling lawsScaling laws are patterns researchers found showing that AI language models improve in a predictable way as they're trained with more computing power, more data, and more parameters.
Sensor FusionSensor fusion is the process of combining data from multiple different sensors -- each with its own strengths and limitations -- to produce a more accurate, reliable, and complete model of the environment or system being measured.
Small language model (SLM)A small language model (SLM) is an AI language model with relatively few parameters, typically from under a billion to a few billion or so, designed to run quickly and cheaply, sometimes directly on a phone, laptop, or small server.
Smart ContractA smart contract is a small program stored on a blockchain that automatically executes an agreement when specific conditions are met.
Smart HomeA smart home is a house where devices like lights, thermostats, locks, cameras, and appliances are connected to the internet and can be controlled remotely or automated.
Smart LockA smart lock is a door lock that replaces or augments a physical key with electronic access control -- allowing the door to be locked and unlocked via a smartphone app, PIN keypad, voice assistant, proximity credential (NFC or Bluetooth), or automated rule (unlock when an authorized user's phone approaches).
Smart ThermostatA smart thermostat is a heating and cooling controller that connects to the internet and can be controlled remotely via a smartphone app or voice assistant.
Smart-Home HubA smart-home hub is a device or software platform that serves as the central coordinator for smart-home devices -- connecting lights, locks, thermostats, sensors, cameras, and appliances from different manufacturers and allowing them to be controlled together through a single app or voice assistant.
Speculative decodingSpeculative decoding is a technique for making large AI models generate text faster.
Structured outputsStructured outputs is a feature that makes an AI language model produce responses in a precise, machine-readable format, usually JSON that matches a schema you define, with exact field names and data types.
Synthetic DataSynthetic data is data that has been artificially generated by a computer model rather than collected from real-world events or people.
Temperature (LLM sampling)Temperature is a setting that controls how much randomness an AI language model uses when picking each next word.
Text-to-ImageText-to-image is a category of generative AI that creates images from natural language descriptions (called prompts).
Text-to-VideoText-to-video is a generative AI capability that creates video clips from natural language descriptions.
Token PricingToken pricing is the billing model used by AI API providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google to charge for large language model usage.
TokenizerA tokenizer is the part of an AI language model system that breaks text into tokens, small chunks such as whole words, parts of words, or punctuation, and converts them into numbers the model can process.
Training DataTraining data is the collection of examples that an AI system learns from, much like textbooks and practice problems for a student.
V2X (Vehicle-to-Everything)V2X (vehicle-to-everything) is a family of wireless communication technologies that enable vehicles to exchange real-time data with other vehicles (V2V), road infrastructure like traffic signals and road sensors (V2I), pedestrians and cyclists carrying devices (V2P), and cellular networks for cloud connectivity (V2N).
Vector databaseA vector database is a database built to store embeddings, the number lists AI models use to represent meaning, and to quickly find the ones closest to a query.
Vibe codingVibe coding is a way of building software where a person describes what they want to an AI tool in everyday language, accepts the code it writes, and keeps asking for changes until the result works, often without reading the code closely.
Virtual Reality (VR)Virtual reality, or VR, uses a special headset to place you inside a completely computer-generated world.
Voice CloningVoice cloning uses AI to analyze recordings of a real person's voice and produce a model that can generate new speech in that voice from any typed text.
Wearable TechnologyWearable technology refers to electronic devices you wear on your body that collect data, provide information, or perform computing tasks.
Z-WaveZ-Wave is a wireless communication protocol designed for smart-home and building automation devices including locks, thermostats, sensors, and switches.
ZigbeeZigbee is a low-power, short-range wireless communication standard designed for smart-home and IoT devices including lights, sensors, switches, plugs, and thermostats.