Reference
Glossary
The words you keep hearing, in plain English. Where an official body defines a term, we cite it.
Facts checked September 24, 2026
- AI (artificial intelligence)
- Computer systems that do tasks we usually associate with human thinking, like understanding language, recognizing images or making predictions.
- Generative AI
- AI that creates new content (text, images, audio, video or code) instead of only sorting or labeling existing content. ChatGPT and image generators are generative AI.
- Large language model (LLM)
- The engine behind chatbots. A model trained on huge amounts of text to predict the next word, which lets it write and answer questions.1
- Chatbot / AI assistant
- An app you talk to in plain language, such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, that runs on a large language model.
- Model
- The trained AI system itself. Companies give models names and version numbers (for example, a newer model may be faster or more capable).
- Training data
- The text, images and other material a model learns from before you ever use it.
- Token
- A chunk of text, often part of a word, that a language model reads and writes one at a time.1
- Prompt
- What you type or say to an AI. Clear, specific prompts get better answers.
- Hallucination (confabulation)
- When AI states something false with confidence. NIST calls it confabulation; OpenAI calls hallucinations "plausible but false statements."1,2
- Knowledge cutoff
- The date after which a model has no information from its training. Anthropic publishes a "reliable knowledge cutoff" for each Claude model.3
- Web search / grounding
- When a chatbot looks things up online before answering and shows links to its sources.4,5
- Temporary chat / incognito
- A chat mode that stays out of your history and isn't used for training. Names and rules differ by app; see Privacy.
- Deepfake
- Fake video, audio or images made with AI to look or sound like a real person.
- Voice cloning
- Using AI to copy someone's voice from a recording. The FTC warns a short clip can be enough.6
- AI agent
- AI that takes actions for you (browsing, filling out forms, running tasks over several steps) rather than only answering questions.
- Multimodal
- AI that works with more than one kind of input or output, such as text, images, audio and video.
- Data center
- A building full of computers. AI runs in data centers, which is why AI's electricity use is a growing issue.7
Sources for this page
- Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework: Generative AI Profile (NIST AI 600-1). National Institute of Standards and Technology.
- Why language models hallucinate. OpenAI.
- Models overview. Anthropic (Claude Platform docs).
- ChatGPT search. OpenAI Help Center.
- Gemini Apps Privacy Hub. Google Gemini Help.
- Scammers use AI to enhance their family emergency schemes. Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Advice.
- Energy and AI: Executive summary. International Energy Agency.