Glossary

The words, minus the jargon

Short definitions of the terms our guides use, each with an everyday example. Link to any term with /glossary#term.

AI model: The engine behind tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.; The model is the part that reads what you give it and writes a response. The app you use (a chat window, an email plugin, an automation tool) is the wrapper around it. When people say “use AI,” they usually mean “send text to a model and get text back.”
Prompt: The instructions you give the AI for a single task.; A good prompt reads like a clear handoff to a new coworker: what the job is, what to use, what the finished thing should look like, and what not to do. “Summarize this” is a question. “Summarize this dec page into five bullets for an internal renewal review, and flag anything that changed from last year” is a job.
Context: Everything the AI can see while it works: your instructions, files, and earlier messages.; AI only knows what is in front of it. If you want it to write in your office’s style, follow your checklist, or compare two documents, those things need to be in its context. Most bad outputs come from missing context, not a bad model.
Context window: How much text the AI can hold in view at once.; Think of it as the size of the desk. Modern models have big desks, but very long conversations still get messy. For repeatable work, start a fresh chat per job and paste in only what that job needs.
Workflow: A repeatable sequence of steps that turns an input into a finished output.; A workflow has a clear start (a form, an email, a file), a set of steps, and a result you can check. The guides on this site are workflows: you do them the same way every time, so they get faster and more reliable.
Agent: AI that works through several steps on its own toward a goal, using tools you allow.; A chatbot answers one message at a time. An agent is given a job, like “go through this week’s check-ins and draft replies,” and works through the steps: reading, sorting, drafting, and flagging. It can also use tools such as reading a folder or a spreadsheet. You still set the rules and review the result.
Automation: Software that runs a step for you when something happens, with no clicking needed.; Tools like Zapier, Make, or your email’s built-in rules can trigger a step automatically, like “when a form is submitted, send it to the AI and save the draft to a folder.” Automate a workflow only after you have run it by hand enough times to trust it.
Custom instructions / Projects: Saved instructions and files the AI reuses every time, so you don’t re-explain.; ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini all let you save standing instructions and reference files (called Projects, GPTs, Gems, or custom instructions). This is where a workflow lives: set it up once, then each job is just “here’s this week’s input.”
Hallucination: When the AI states something confidently that isn’t true.; Models fill gaps with plausible-sounding text. The fix is structural: give it the source material, ask it to quote or cite where each point came from, and have a person check anything that matters before it leaves the building.
Human in the loop: A person reviews and approves the AI’s work at set points.; Every workflow on this site has at least one review step. AI drafts, sorts, and flags. You decide what goes out. That is not a limitation. It is what makes the workflow safe to rely on.
Template: A fill-in-the-blanks format the AI should follow for its output.; Showing the AI the exact shape you want, such as a table with these columns or an email with these three parts, is the fastest way to get consistent results. Paste the template into the prompt and ask it to fill it in.
PII (personal information): Details that identify a real person: names, addresses, policy or account numbers, health info.; Check your company’s or industry’s rules before putting client details into any AI tool. Many workflows work just as well with names swapped for initials or IDs. Business and team plans from the major AI vendors typically offer stronger data terms than free personal accounts, so read them.

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