Dictionary of AI - Quick Reference

Published in 2026 by Masonsoft Technology Ltd, Foundational AI Words: Quick Reference is a compact guide to the most practically important AI terminology for professionals new to the field. Rather than comprehensive coverage, it focuses on a curated set of terms arranged in four tiers that reflect the order in which they are worth learning. The Essential Core tier covers the terms most fundamental to understanding what AI is and how language systems work, including large language models, prompts, hallucination, and the context window. The Critical for Practical Use tier addresses the concepts most directly relevant to achieving reliable results with AI tools, including prompt engineering, temperature, grounding, and inference costs. The Important for Business Decisions tier introduces concepts relevant to strategic and procurement choices, from foundation models and fine-tuning through to retrieval-augmented generation, predictive AI, and algorithmic bias. A final Useful Context tier covers broader technical vocabulary including machine learning, natural language processing, and open-source AI. The guide is suited to professionals preparing for AI adoption projects, staff induction programmes, or anyone building a practical working vocabulary in AI.