AI vocabulary for 2026

The AI glossary you can actually use at work.

Clear, current definitions of 120 essential AI terms — from fine-tuning and RAG to MCP, agents, GPT-5, Claude Sonnet 4, Midjourney v7 and Kling. Each entry explains what it means, why it matters and where it fits in real US business workflows.

120

Definitions

6

Categories

Updated 2026

Current models

By category

Browse the glossary by topic

Six categories grouping the entire vocabulary, from machine-learning fundamentals to infrastructure and ethics.

Fundamentals

Core machine learning concepts every AI practitioner should know — from training and inference to bias and variance.

20 terms

Algorithm

A finite, well-defined sequence of steps that solves a problem or performs a task.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Software systems that perform tasks normally requiring human reasoning, perception or decision-making.

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Backpropagation

The algorithm that computes gradients through a neural network by applying the chain rule layer by layer.

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Bias

Two meanings: a model's systematic underfitting, or unfair behaviour toward demographic groups.

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CPU (Central Processing Unit)

The general-purpose processor at the heart of every computer; runs orchestration around AI workloads.

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Cross-Validation

A technique for measuring model quality by training and testing on rotating slices of the dataset.

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Dataset

A structured collection of examples used to train, validate or evaluate a machine-learning model.

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Deep Learning

Machine learning using multi-layer neural networks; the foundation of modern LLMs and image models.

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GPU (Graphics Processing Unit)

Massively parallel processors originally built for graphics, now the workhorse of AI training and inference.

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Gradient Descent

The optimisation algorithm that powers neural network training by following the slope of the loss surface.

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Inference

Running a trained model on new inputs to produce predictions or generated content.

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Labeling

Attaching the correct answer to each example in a dataset so a model can learn to reproduce it.

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Machine Learning (ML)

A branch of AI where algorithms learn patterns from data instead of following hand-coded rules.

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Model

A trained mathematical artifact that maps inputs to outputs, like a function learned from data.

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Neural Network

A mathematical model loosely inspired by the brain, made of layers of weighted connections that learn from data.

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Overfitting

When a model memorises the training set and fails to generalise to new examples.

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Regularization

Techniques that constrain a model so it generalises to new data instead of memorising the training set.

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Training

The process of adjusting a model's weights from data so that it learns to perform a task.

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Transfer Learning

Adapting a model trained on one task to a related task with much less data and compute.

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Variance

How sensitive a model is to the specific training set; high variance means high overfitting risk.

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Large Language Models

How modern LLMs work: tokens, embeddings, transformers, fine-tuning, RAG, and the techniques that shape model behaviour.

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Attention

The mechanism that lets each token in a sequence weigh and combine information from every other token.

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BLEU Score

A classic metric for machine translation quality based on n-gram overlap with reference translations.

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Chain-of-Thought (CoT)

Asking the model to reason step by step out loud before giving its final answer.

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Context

All the text the model can see when generating a response — the system prompt, history and current input.

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Context Window

The maximum amount of input (in tokens) a model can read in a single request.

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Distillation

Training a smaller, cheaper model to imitate the outputs of a larger one.

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Embedding

A dense vector that represents the meaning of a piece of text, image or other content.

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Fine-tuning

Continuing to train a pretrained model on your own data so it specialises in your task or style.

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Hallucination

When an LLM produces fluent, confident-sounding output that is factually wrong or invented.

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Instruction Tuning

Fine-tuning a base model on (instruction, response) pairs so it follows directions instead of just predicting text.

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Mixture of Experts (MoE)

An architecture where each input only activates a subset of the model's parameters, decoupling capacity from cost.

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Parameters

The learned weights inside a model; counted in millions or billions, they store everything the model knows.

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Perplexity

A measure of how surprised a language model is by a piece of text; lower means better fit.

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RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)

A pattern where the model retrieves relevant documents from a knowledge base and uses them to answer.

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RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback)

A training technique where humans rank model outputs and the model is optimised to produce higher-ranked responses.

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System Prompt

The instructions sent before the user's message that define the model's role, tone and constraints.

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Temperature

A sampling parameter controlling how random or deterministic the model's outputs are.

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Token

The atomic unit a language model reads and writes; usually a word, sub-word fragment or punctuation mark.

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Top-p (Nucleus Sampling)

A sampling method that restricts the model to the smallest set of tokens whose probabilities sum to p.

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Transformer

The neural network architecture introduced in 2017 that powers virtually every modern LLM.

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AI Tools & Models

The 2026 product landscape: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Llama, Midjourney v7, Sora, Cursor and the rest of the working stack.

20 terms

ChatGPT

OpenAI's flagship conversational AI assistant, the product that brought generative AI to mainstream attention.

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Claude

Anthropic's family of conversational AI models, known for long context, careful reasoning and coding strength.

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Claude Sonnet 4

Anthropic's flagship workhorse model in 2026, known for coding, careful reasoning and long context.

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Cursor

An AI-first code editor based on VS Code, the dominant pick for AI-assisted development in 2026.

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DALL-E 3

OpenAI's image generation model integrated into ChatGPT, known for strong literal prompt following.

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ElevenLabs

The leading voice AI company, known for high-quality text-to-speech, voice cloning and dubbing.

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Gemini

Google's family of multimodal AI models, integrated across Workspace, Android and the Gemini app.

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GitHub Copilot

Microsoft and GitHub's AI coding assistant, embedded in VS Code, JetBrains and the GitHub web interface.

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GPT-5

OpenAI's flagship LLM as of 2025–2026, with multimodal input, built-in reasoning and agentic tool use.

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Kling

Kuaishou's text-to-video model, a leading Sora competitor known for cinematic realism and physical motion.

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Llama

Meta's family of open-weight large language models, the foundation of much of the open AI ecosystem.

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Midjourney v7

The 2025–2026 release of the popular image generation service, with sharper realism and stronger prompt control.

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Mistral

A French AI lab known for high-quality open-weight models, especially Mixtral MoE and Mistral Large.

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nano-banana-2

An automation-friendly image generation model accessible via the Evolink API, popular for batch marketing pipelines.

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NotebookLM

Google's source-grounded AI research notebook; especially famous for its podcast-style audio summaries.

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Perplexity (search engine)

An AI-native search engine that answers questions with cited sources instead of a list of links.

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Replit Agent

Replit's AI agent that builds, debugs and deploys full applications from natural-language descriptions.

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Sora

OpenAI's text-to-video model, capable of generating realistic short clips from text or image prompts.

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Stable Diffusion

The leading family of open-weight image generation models, the foundation of much of the open creative AI ecosystem.

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Suno

An AI music generation service that produces full vocal songs from text descriptions.

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Prompts & Agents

Prompt engineering, structured output, function calling, agents, MCP, multi-agent systems and the patterns that ship in production.

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Agent

An AI system that autonomously plans, takes actions through tools, and iterates toward a goal.

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AutoGPT

A 2023 viral open-source autonomous agent project that helped popularise the agent-loop concept.

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Browser Automation

Letting an AI agent control a real web browser to navigate, fill forms and extract information.

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Computer Use

An LLM's ability to control a desktop environment with screenshots, mouse and keyboard input.

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Custom Tool

A function you write and expose to an agent so it can perform a specific action in your system.

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Few-Shot Prompting

Including a handful of input/output examples in the prompt to teach the model the desired pattern.

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Function Calling (Tool Use)

An API mechanism where the model decides to call your code, with arguments, instead of generating text.

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JSON Mode

An API setting that tells the model to return only valid JSON, eliminating wrapper text and parse errors.

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MCP (Model Context Protocol)

An open standard from Anthropic for connecting tools and data sources to any compatible LLM.

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Memory (Agent Memory)

Persistent state that lets an agent remember facts and preferences across sessions and conversations.

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Multi-Agent System

An architecture where multiple specialised AI agents collaborate on a task with distinct roles.

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Orchestrator

The control layer that routes work between models, agents, tools and humans in a complex AI workflow.

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Planner

The component of an agent that decomposes a goal into ordered steps before execution.

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Prompt Engineering

The discipline of writing instructions to LLMs so they produce reliable, useful outputs.

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Prompt Injection

An attack where untrusted input contains instructions that override the developer's system prompt.

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ReAct Pattern

An agent loop that interleaves Reasoning and Acting steps, thinking out loud before each tool call.

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Role Prompting

Telling the model who to act as — "You are a senior tax accountant" — to set expertise and tone.

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Structured Output

Forcing the model to return data in a specific schema (JSON, XML) so it can be safely parsed.

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Tool Use

An LLM's ability to call external functions or APIs to extend its capabilities beyond text generation.

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Zero-Shot Prompting

Asking the model to perform a task with only an instruction, no examples in the prompt.

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Vision & Generation

Image, video, 3D, voice and audio generation — diffusion, ControlNet, LoRA, NeRFs, Gaussian splats and modern speech AI.

20 terms

Computer Vision

The field of AI that enables computers to interpret and reason about images and video.

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ControlNet

An extension to Stable Diffusion that lets you condition image generation on poses, depth maps or sketches.

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Depth Estimation

Predicting the distance from camera to every pixel in an image, producing a depth map.

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Diffusion Model

A generative model that learns to reverse a noising process, the dominant approach to image and video generation.

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Gaussian Splatting

A 3D scene representation made of millions of coloured 3D Gaussians, faster to render than NeRF.

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Image Generation

AI systems that produce images from text prompts, reference images or both.

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Image Segmentation

Labeling every pixel in an image so each region corresponds to an object or class.

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Image-to-Video

Generating a moving video clip from a single still image, often with described motion.

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Inpainting

Editing a specific region of an image with AI while keeping the rest unchanged.

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Latent Space

A compressed mathematical space where AI models represent the meaningful features of their inputs.

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LoRA (Low-Rank Adaptation)

A parameter-efficient fine-tuning technique that adds tiny trainable adapters to a frozen base model.

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NeRF (Neural Radiance Fields)

A 3D scene representation learned by a neural network from multiple 2D photos.

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OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

Extracting text from images and scanned documents so it can be searched and processed.

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Outpainting

Extending an image beyond its original borders with AI-generated content that matches the existing scene.

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Pose Estimation

Detecting the position of human (or animal) joints in images and video to reconstruct skeletal pose.

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Speech-to-Text (STT)

AI systems that convert spoken audio into written text; the input side of voice interfaces.

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Text-to-3D

Generating 3D models, scenes or assets from text prompts; the 3D analog of text-to-image.

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Text-to-Speech (TTS)

AI systems that convert written text into natural-sounding spoken audio.

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Voice Cloning

Generating a synthetic voice that mimics a specific person's vocal identity from a short audio sample.

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Whisper

OpenAI's open-source speech recognition model, the dominant choice for transcription in 2026.

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Infrastructure & Ethics

Vector databases, alignment, EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, copyright, deepfakes, evals and the operational layer of responsible AI.

20 terms

AGI (Artificial General Intelligence)

Hypothetical AI capable of matching or exceeding human performance across the full range of cognitive tasks.

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Alignment

The discipline of ensuring AI systems pursue the goals their developers and users actually want.

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ASI (Artificial Superintelligence)

Hypothetical AI vastly exceeding human cognitive abilities across essentially all domains.

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Copyright (and AI-generated works)

The legal protection for original creative works; complicated when AI generates the output.

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Deepfake

Synthetic media (image, audio, video) that convincingly depicts events or statements that did not happen.

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Embedding Store

The infrastructure layer that stores, indexes and serves embeddings for retrieval and search.

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EU AI Act

The European Union's risk-based AI regulation, the first comprehensive AI law from a major jurisdiction.

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Eval (Evaluation)

Tests that measure how well an AI system performs on intended tasks and under adversarial conditions.

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Fair Use (and AI training data)

The US copyright doctrine allowing limited use of copyrighted material; central to ongoing AI training lawsuits.

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Jailbreak

A prompt or attack that bypasses an LLM's safety training to produce content the model is meant to refuse.

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Latency

How long an AI system takes to respond; often more important than raw quality for user experience.

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Leaderboard

A ranked list of AI models on a benchmark; useful for model selection and the source of constant marketing.

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Model Card

A standardised document describing an AI model's purpose, training, limitations and intended use.

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NIST AI Risk Management Framework

A voluntary US framework for managing risks across the AI lifecycle, increasingly cited in procurement.

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Open Weights

Models whose trained parameters are publicly downloadable, even if the training data and code are not.

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P(doom)

Subjective probability that AI causes existential or near-existential catastrophe; a contested AI-policy shorthand.

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pgvector

The Postgres extension that adds vector similarity search to ordinary Postgres tables.

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Red Teaming

Adversarial testing of AI systems by humans (or other AI) trying to make them fail or misbehave.

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Vector Database

A specialised database optimised for storing and searching high-dimensional vectors by similarity.

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Watermarking

Embedding hidden signals in AI-generated content so it can later be identified as synthetic.

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A–Z index

Every term, alphabetically

Looking for something specific? Use the index below.

C

From theory to skill

Knowing the words is step one. Using them is the goal.

Once a term clicks, the next move is to put it to work. Browse our courses to turn vocabulary into a working AI workflow you can ship this week.

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