Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Definition
The broad term for software that performs tasks we'd normally associate with human thinking: understanding language, recognising images, making predictions. It's an umbrella, not a single thing. The chatbot you type to, the system that flags fraud on your card, and the feature that suggests your next word are all called AI, despite working very differently. When most people say "AI" today, they mean generative AI, the tools that produce text and images.
Why It Matters
It's the word wrapped around all the others. Knowing how broad and loose it is helps you ask the more useful question: which kind of AI, doing what.
What does that look like in practice?
The fraud alert on your card, the chatbot on a website, and your phone's autocomplete are all 'AI,' doing very different jobs.
What people actually mean when they say this
When someone just says 'AI,' it's worth asking which kind: the word covers everything from a spam filter to ChatGPT.
Last reviewed: June 2026
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