glossary
the personal AI glossary
Plain-English definitions of the terms behind personal AI - what they mean, how they work, and how folk puts them to use.
Concepts
Personal AI
A personal AI is an artificial-intelligence assistant dedicated to one person - it learns your preferences, remembers your context, and takes actions on your behalf across everyday life.
read definitionAI Agent
An AI agent is an AI system that takes actions to accomplish a goal - using tools, browsing the web, and completing multi-step tasks autonomously, not just generating text.
read definitionAgentic AI
Agentic AI refers to AI systems that act with autonomy - setting sub-goals, using tools, and taking multi-step actions to complete tasks, rather than only responding to prompts.
read definitionAI Concierge
An AI concierge is a personal AI that handles real-world tasks and logistics for you - reservations, travel, recommendations, and errands - like a human concierge, but always available.
read definitionPersistent Memory
Persistent memory is an AI's ability to remember information across separate conversations - your preferences, people, and past requests - instead of forgetting everything when a chat ends.
read definitionProactive AI
Proactive AI is an assistant that reaches out to you first - sending reminders, briefings, and alerts, and acting on schedule - instead of only responding when prompted.
read definitionAI Chief of Staff
An AI chief of staff is a personal AI that handles high-level coordination - inbox triage, scheduling, follow-ups, prep, and research - the way a human chief of staff would, for founders and busy professionals.
read definitionAI Companion
An AI companion is an AI you build an ongoing relationship with - it remembers you, checks in, and supports you day to day through conversation, coaching, or company, rather than answering one-off questions.
read definitionTechnology
Model Context Protocol (MCP)
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that lets AI assistants connect to external tools and data through a common interface, so any compatible app can plug into any compatible AI.
read definitionLarge Language Model (LLM)
A large language model (LLM) is an AI trained on vast amounts of text to understand and generate human-like language, powering chatbots, assistants, and AI agents.
read definitionAI Sandbox
An AI sandbox is an isolated computing environment where an AI agent can run code, browse the web, and use tools safely - separated from other users and systems.
read definitionBring Your Own Key (BYOK)
Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) lets you use your own API keys for the underlying AI models in a product, so you control the provider, the spend, and sometimes the data terms.
read definitionConversational AI
Conversational AI is technology that lets software understand and respond in natural language - powering chatbots, voice assistants, and messaging assistants you interact with by talking or texting.
read definitionRetrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is a technique where an AI retrieves relevant information from an external source and uses it to generate a more accurate, up-to-date answer - instead of relying only on what the model memorized.
read definitionContext Window
A context window is the maximum amount of text an AI model can hold in working memory at once - every message, file, and tool definition in the conversation counts toward it.
read definitionToken Limit
A token limit is the cap on how many tokens - chunks of text roughly three quarters of a word each - an AI model can process in a single request, including both the conversation history and its own reply.
read definitionContext Rot
Context rot is the decline in AI response quality as a conversation grows longer, caused by the model's attention spreading across more tokens until earlier instructions lose influence.
read definitionCompaction
Compaction is when an AI system summarizes earlier parts of a conversation and replaces them with that summary, freeing space in the context window so the thread can continue.
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