AI Plain English

Machine learning explained in plain English for Australian small business owners. What it actually is, why it matters, and how it already shows up in the tools you use.

Part of the AI, Plain English series – AI jargon explained for Australian small business owners. What Is a Reasoning Model? A reasoning model is a type of AI that works through a problem step by step before giving you an answer – rather than responding immediately. It’s designed for tasks where getting the right…

Part of the AI, Plain English series – AI jargon explained for Australian small business owners. What Does “Generative AI” Actually Mean? Generative AI is software that creates new content – text, images, audio, video, code – from a prompt you give it. Unlike older software that retrieves or sorts existing data, generative AI produces…

Part of the AI, Plain English series – AI jargon explained for Australian small business owners. What Is a System Prompt? A system prompt is a set of instructions given to an AI before you interact with it – instructions that shape how it behaves, what it will and won’t do, and what role it…

Part of the AI, Plain English series – AI jargon explained for Australian small business owners. What Is Workflow Automation (AI)? Workflow automation is the practice of using software to handle a sequence of business tasks – without someone doing each step manually. When AI is added to that mix, the automation can handle steps…

Part of the AI, Plain English series – AI jargon explained for Australian small business owners. What Is a Deepfake? A deepfake is a piece of audio, video, or image content that has been generated or manipulated by AI to make a real person appear to say or do something they never said or did….

Part of the AI, Plain English series – AI jargon explained for Australian small business owners. What Do “Data Privacy” and “Data Sovereignty” Actually Mean? Data privacy is about who can access information about your customers or business, and what they’re allowed to do with it. Data sovereignty is a related but distinct idea: it’s…

Part of the AI, Plain English series, AI jargon explained for Australian small business owners. What Does “RAG” Actually Mean? RAG stands for Retrieval-expand Generation. It’s a way of giving an AI access to your documents, files, or data before it answers a question, so instead of guessing, it looks things up first. Think of…

Part of the AI, Plain English series, AI jargon explained for Australian small business owners. What Does “AI Automation” Actually Mean? AI automation is what happens when you connect AI’s ability to understand and generate language to tools that can take action, sending emails, updating records, routing tasks. Automation without AI follows fixed rules. AI…

Part of the AI, Plain English series, AI jargon explained for Australian small business owners. What Does “Multimodal AI” Actually Mean? Multimodal AI can work with more than just text. It can process images, audio, and video, not just what you type. You can show it a photo of a receipt and ask it to…