50 terms from AI, websites, SEO, automation and compliance, explained briefly, for the people who make the decisions, not just for developers.
Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 on artificial intelligence
The European regulation that sets rules for developing and using artificial intelligence systems in the EU. Obligations depend on the risk level of the use and apply in stages.
It applies both to those who develop AI systems and to companies that use them in their work.
A system based on a language model that does not just answer questions but completes tasks: it looks up data, uses tools and apps, and takes successive steps towards a set goal.
The difference from a chatbot is action: the agent can, for example, check an order and open a ticket, within the limits you give it.
The basic knowledge people working with AI systems need: what they can and cannot do, what risks they carry and how to use them responsibly. The AI Act requires companies to take measures so that the staff involved have this level of understanding.
Application Programming Interface
An interface through which two applications communicate according to clear rules: one sends a request, the other responds with data or performs an action. APIs connect a website to an ERP, a courier or an AI model.
A system taking over repetitive steps that a person would otherwise do: copying data between apps, sending notifications, generating documents or sorting requests.
The best candidates are frequent processes with clear rules and data that is already in digital form.
Content Delivery Network
A network of geographically distributed servers that keeps copies of a website's files and delivers them to visitors from the nearest server. The result: pages that load faster and a site that copes better with traffic spikes.
A program that holds written conversations with users, on a website, in messaging apps or inside a company. Modern chatbots use language models and can answer based on your documents.
A chatbot answers; when it also has to do something in other systems, we are talking about an AI agent.
Cumulative Layout Shift
The Core Web Vitals metric that measures how much page elements move unexpectedly while loading, for instance a button pushed down by an image that appears late. A low CLS means a stable page.
Content Management System
The application you use to edit a website's content without writing code: pages, articles, images, products. WordPress is the best-known example, but there are also headless CMSs, which only supply the content.
machine vision
The branch of AI that lets systems interpret images and video: recognise objects, count products, detect defects or read text. Many business applications do not need to identify people.
A person's freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous agreement to the processing of their personal data, within the meaning of GDPR. It is one of the possible legal bases, not the only one, and can be withdrawn at any time.
On a website it most often appears for marketing cookies and newsletter sign-ups.
The maximum amount of text, measured in tokens, that a language model can take into account in a single request: the instructions, the conversation, attached documents and the answer. Anything beyond the window is not “seen” by the model.
The action you want a visitor to take on your website: an order, a quote request, a phone call, a booking or a sign-up. The conversion rate shows what share of visitors go on to take that action.
The set of metrics Google uses to assess the real experience of using a page: how fast the main content loads (LCP), how it responds to interactions (INP) and its visual stability (CLS).
They are measured on data from real visitors and matter both to users and to search.
Call to Action
The element that tells visitors what to do next, usually a button or a link: “Request a quote”, “Book a call”, “Add to basket”. A good CTA is visible, clear and linked to what the person has just read.
DPA
The contract between the company that decides why and how personal data is used (the controller) and the supplier that processes it on its behalf (the processor). GDPR requires such an agreement and sets out what it must contain.
You usually sign one with your hosting, email, CRM or AI service providers that end up seeing your customers' data.
RO e-Factura, Romanian e-invoicing
Romania's national system through which invoices are issued in a structured electronic format and submitted through the platform of ANAF (the Romanian tax authority). The invoice has a standard format that accounting software can read automatically.
Because the format is standard, issuing, submitting and receiving invoices can be automated.
A numerical representation of the meaning of a text, an image or a sound, in the form of a list of numbers. Texts with similar meanings have similar embeddings, which makes it possible to search by meaning, not just by exact words.
Further training of an existing AI model on your own examples, so it adopts a particular style, format or type of task. It is useful for behaviour, less so for knowledge that changes often, where RAG is usually the right fit.
General Data Protection Regulation, (EU) 2016/679
The European regulation that sets out how personal data may be collected, used, stored and protected. It applies to any company that processes data about people in the EU, including through its website, forms or AI tools.
formerly Google My Business
A business's free profile in Google Maps and in local search results: address, opening hours, phone, photos, reviews. It is one of the most important pieces of local SEO.
When a language model produces an answer that sounds convincing but is false or made up: a figure, a source, a rule that does not exist. The risk drops when the model answers from verified documents and a person validates what matters.
headless CMS, headless architecture
An architecture in which the content or store management side is separate from the visible part of the website. Content reaches a separately built front end through an API, for example one built in Next.js.
You gain design freedom and performance, but you have two systems to maintain instead of one.
web hosting
The service that keeps a website on servers permanently connected to the internet, so it is accessible to visitors. The type of hosting affects speed, stability, security and maintenance cost.
SSL, TLS, SSL certificate
The secure version of the web protocol, in which data between the browser and the website is encrypted using a certificate (commonly called SSL). Browsers mark sites without HTTPS as not secure, and forms and payments require it.
human-in-the-loop, HITL
A way of working in which an AI system or an automation prepares the result, but a person checks and approves it before the important steps. It keeps control where a mistake would be costly.
Interaction to Next Paint
The Core Web Vitals metric that measures how quickly a page visibly responds after the user clicks, taps or types. A poor INP feels like a site that “freezes” on click.
The connection between two or more applications, so that data flows automatically between them: website and ERP, store and courier, form and CRM. It is done through APIs, webhooks or automation platforms.
A page built for a single goal, usually tied to a campaign: visitors arrive from an ad or an email and are guided towards a single action, without distractions.
Largest Contentful Paint
The Core Web Vitals metric that measures how long it takes for the largest visible element of the page to appear on screen, usually the main image or the heading. It shows how quickly the page seems loaded.
Large Language Model, language model
An AI model trained on large volumes of text that understands and generates natural language: it answers questions, summarises, translates, drafts and extracts information. It powers assistants such as ChatGPT or Claude.
The model predicts the most likely text; it does not check the truth, which is why important answers must be grounded in sources and verified.
Optimising a business's online presence for searches with local intent, such as “car repair near me” or “accountant in Cluj”. It includes the Google Business Profile, reviews, consistent contact details and pages for the areas served.
Model Context Protocol
An open protocol, proposed by Anthropic, through which AI applications connect in a standard way to external tools and data sources, such as files, databases or business applications.
Instead of a separate integration written for each assistant, a data source exposed via MCP can be used by any compatible application.
Optical Character Recognition
The technology that turns text in images or scanned documents into editable, searchable text. Combined with AI, it can automatically extract fields such as the supplier, date or total from an invoice.
payment processor
The service that takes card payments or other payment methods on an online store, passes them to the bank and returns the result. Card data is handled by the processor, not by the store's website.
Product Information Management
A system for managing product information centrally: descriptions, attributes, images, translations. From there the data is sent to the online store, marketplaces and catalogues, so it is the same everywhere.
The instruction or question you give a language model. The quality of the answer depends heavily on the prompt: context, a clear task, the desired format and examples.
In an AI product, the system prompt sets the assistant's role, tone and limits.
Retrieval-Augmented Generation
A technique in which a language model first searches your documents for the relevant information and only then writes the answer based on it. This way it answers from current, verifiable sources, not just from what it learned during training.
Search Engine Optimisation
The work that makes a website easier to find in organic search results: technical structure, speed, useful content, structured data and links from other websites.
sitemap.xml
A file that lists a website's important pages, so search engines can discover and access them more easily. It does not guarantee indexing, but it helps, especially for new or large websites.
STT, automatic transcription
The technology that turns speech into written text. It is the first step in a voice agent and underpins the automatic transcription of calls or meetings.
Spațiul Privat Virtual (ANAF's online portal)
The online service of ANAF (the Romanian tax authority) through which taxpayers communicate with the tax administration: they submit and receive documents and can view invoices from the e-Factura system. A company usually accesses it with a digital certificate.
schema.org, schema markup
Information added to a page's code, in a standard vocabulary (schema.org), that tells search engines explicitly what the page contains: a business, a product, an article, frequently asked questions. It helps search engines understand the page and can make the search result richer.
TTS, speech synthesis
The technology that turns text into a synthetic voice. Today's voices sound natural and are used by voice agents, in assistants and for audio versions of content.
The unit into which a language model splits text: a word, part of a word or a punctuation mark. The length of processed text and the cost of using models through an API are usually measured in tokens.
A database that stores embeddings, that is, numerical representations of the meaning of texts or images, and quickly finds the content closest in meaning to a question. It is the search component in most RAG systems.
AI voice agent, AI voice assistant
An AI agent that holds conversations by voice, usually over the phone: it turns speech into text, understands the request, writes a reply and speaks it with a synthetic voice.
The person on the other end must be told they are speaking to an automated system, and call recording has its own rules.
An automatic message that one application sends to another as soon as something happens, for example a new order or a confirmed payment. It is the usual way an automation workflow is triggered.
The chain of automated steps triggered by an event that pass data from one app to another: for example, form submitted, contact added to the CRM, email sent to the team. In n8n, Make or Zapier, workflows are built visually.
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