AI glossary
Artificial intelligence (AI)
The field of building computer systems that perform tasks we associate with human intelligence, such as understanding language or recognising images.
Artificial intelligence is a broad label, not a single technology. It covers old rule-based systems, statistical machine learning and today’s large language models.
When people say “AI” in 2026 they usually mean generative AI: models that produce text, images, audio or code. It helps to be specific: a spam filter, a chess engine and a chatbot are all AI, but they work in very different ways.
Example: A photo app that groups pictures by face, a translator and a coding assistant are three different AI systems.
In practice
- When a product says it “uses AI”, ask what exactly it does: a statistical filter is not the same as a language model.
- AI systems are often right, but not always: the more important the decision, the more human review it needs.
- In the EU, the AI Act sets obligations according to the risk of each use.
If you are just starting, read how language models work.
