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Enterprise AI Glossary

Cut through the jargon. Clear definitions for executives.

Agent Orchestration

Architecture

Coordinating multiple AI agents to work together on complex workflows, each specializing in specific tasks.

Why it matters: Enables complex automation beyond single-agent capabilities.

Agentic Workflow

Architecture

Autonomous processes where AI agents perceive, plan, and execute multi-step tasks without human intervention, escalating only exceptions.

Why it matters: The shift from 'Chatting with AI' to 'AI doing work'.

Context Window

AI/ML

Maximum amount of text (in tokens) an LLM can process in a single request.

Why it matters: Determines how much data can inform a single AI response.

Embedding

AI/ML

Numerical representation of text that captures semantic meaning, used for similarity search and RAG.

Why it matters: Enables semantic search beyond keyword matching.

ETL (Extract, Transform, Load)

Infrastructure

Data pipeline process for extracting data from sources, transforming it, and loading it into target systems.

Why it matters: Foundation for preparing data for AI training and RAG pipelines.

EU AI Act

Compliance

Comprehensive AI regulation framework from the European Union categorizing AI systems by risk level.

Why it matters: First major AI-specific regulation - sets precedent for global standards.

Explainability

Governance

The ability to understand and articulate why an AI system made a specific decision.

Why it matters: Required for regulated industries and building trust in AI systems.

Fine-Tuning

AI/ML

The process of adapting open-weights models (like Llama 3) on proprietary enterprise data to increase accuracy and reduce hallucinations without API leakage.

Why it matters: Enables domain-specific AI without sending data to external APIs.

Friction Mapping

Strategy

Process of identifying organizational bottlenecks and time-consuming activities that could be automated with AI.

Why it matters: First step in AI implementation - finding highest-impact opportunities.

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)

Compliance

EU data privacy law requiring explicit consent, right to deletion, and data protection for personal information.

Why it matters: Applies to AI systems processing EU resident data - violations cost millions.

Hallucination

AI/ML

When an AI model generates false or fabricated information that sounds plausible but is factually incorrect.

Why it matters: Major risk in production AI - mitigated through RAG, fine-tuning, and validation.

Human-in-the-Loop (HITL)

Governance

Workflow design where humans review and approve high-stakes AI decisions before execution.

Why it matters: Balances automation efficiency with oversight for critical decisions.

LLM (Large Language Model)

AI/ML

AI models trained on vast text data to understand and generate human language (GPT-4, Claude, Llama).

Why it matters: Foundation of modern AI applications and autonomous agents.

Model Drift

Operations

Degradation of AI model performance over time as real-world data patterns change from training data.

Why it matters: Requires ongoing monitoring and retraining to maintain accuracy.

PII (Personally Identifiable Information)

Compliance

Personal data such as SSN, email, phone numbers, medical records that must be protected under privacy regulations.

Why it matters: Critical for GDPR, HIPAA, and data privacy compliance.

Prompt Engineering

AI/ML

Crafting precise instructions and examples to guide AI models toward desired outputs.

Why it matters: Improves AI accuracy and consistency without model retraining.

R-Guard Engine

Governance

The software kernel that intercepts agent actions and blocks them if they are unsafe or violate governance policies.

Why it matters: Prevents AI agents from executing dangerous operations like DELETE or DROP commands.

RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)

AI/ML

Architecture pattern where LLMs query a knowledge base before generating responses, combining retrieval and generation for more accurate, grounded answers.

Why it matters: Reduces hallucinations by grounding AI responses in verified data.

RIF-7 Framework

Governance

Ryzolv's architecture for autonomous AI governance - coded into Rflow™ and designed for enterprise compliance. RIF-7 enforces human-in-the-loop gates, logs every decision cryptographically, and blocks unauthorized operations.

Why it matters: Turns compliance from a checkbox to a systematic process. Ensures AI decisions can be traced, audited, and defended.

Risk Scoring

Governance

Automatic evaluation of an AI decision on a 0-100 scale. High scores trigger human review.

Why it matters: Prevents AI from taking high-risk actions without oversight.

Shadow Mode

Deployment

Testing approach where AI systems run in parallel with human operations, making recommendations but not decisions, to validate accuracy.

Why it matters: De-risks AI deployment by validating accuracy before autonomous operation.

Sovereign Infrastructure (Air-Gapped)

Infrastructure

Architecture where all LLMs, embeddings, and decision logs remain within your corporate firewall or VPC. Zero API calls to external cloud providers (no OpenAI, Azure, or public inference). Equivalent to on-premise AI infrastructure, but cloud-native. All model weights stay under your control.

Why it matters: The only architecture that guarantees 100% data sovereignty for regulated industries.

Token

AI/ML

Unit of text processed by LLMs (roughly 4 characters). Models have token limits and pricing is per-token.

Why it matters: Understanding costs and context window constraints.

Tool Calling (Function Calling)

AI/ML

LLM capability to invoke external APIs, databases, or functions as part of task execution.

Why it matters: Enables AI agents to take actions beyond text generation.

Use Case Prioritization

Strategy

Ranking AI opportunities from highest-impact to lowest, considering both business value ($$$) and technical complexity.

Why it matters: Ensures resources are focused on the most valuable AI initiatives.

Vector Database

Infrastructure

Specialized database (like Pinecone, Weaviate) that stores embeddings and enables semantic search for RAG pipelines.

Why it matters: Enables fast, semantic retrieval of relevant information for AI systems.