Plain-English definitions.

AI

Artificial Intelligence — software that performs tasks which normally require human judgment, such as understanding language, recognizing patterns or making a decision from incomplete information. In a business context, “AI” is often shorthand for a specific tool built on a large language model or a trained decision model, rather than the broad academic field.

AI Agent

A software system that uses AI to autonomously complete a multi-step task rather than just answering a single question. Where a chatbot responds to one prompt at a time, an AI agent can plan a sequence of actions — look something up, make a decision, take an action in another system, check the result — with limited or no human intervention at each step.

AI Automation

The use of artificial intelligence inside an automated workflow so the workflow can handle judgment calls that traditional rule-based automation can’t. Traditional automation follows fixed “if this, then that” logic; AI automation adds the ability to interpret unstructured input — like a customer message or a support ticket — before deciding what happens next.

Generative AI

AI models that create new content — text, images, audio, code — rather than just classifying or scoring existing input. Large language models like the ones behind modern chat assistants are a form of generative AI, and they’re the technology most commonly meant when a business says it’s “using AI” for content or drafting.

LLM (Large Language Model)

A type of AI model trained on large volumes of text to predict and generate language. LLMs are the technology underneath most modern chatbots, AI writing tools and AI agents — they’re what actually reads, reasons about and produces the text in an AI-powered workflow.

RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)

A technique that connects a large language model to a specific set of documents or data (a company’s knowledge base, product catalog or support history) so it answers using that real, current information rather than only what it learned during training. RAG is what makes an AI assistant give accurate, business-specific answers instead of generic ones.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Improving a website’s content, structure and technical setup so it ranks well for relevant queries in traditional search engine results. SEO remains foundational even as AEO and GEO become more important, because organic search still accounts for a majority of website traffic industry-wide.

AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)

Structuring content so AI-driven answer engines — the AI overviews and chat-style answers now appearing inside search results and standalone AI assistants — can extract and cite it directly, rather than just link to it in a list of results. AEO favors clear, direct-answer-first writing and well-marked-up FAQ content.

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)

Optimizing content specifically for visibility inside generative-AI search and chat responses — the broader practice that AEO sits within. GEO considers how an AI system selects, summarizes and attributes sources when generating an answer, not just how a traditional search engine ranks a page.

CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization)

The practice of improving the percentage of website visitors who complete a desired action — a purchase, a form submission, a call. CRO work typically involves testing changes to page layout, copy, forms and calls to action against real visitor behavior rather than guessing what will work.

Marketing Automation

Software-driven workflows that trigger marketing actions — emails, lead scoring, list segmentation, routing — automatically based on a person’s behavior, such as visiting a pricing page or downloading a guide. Marketing automation typically follows fixed rules rather than interpreting unstructured input.

Sales Automation

Automating repetitive steps in the sales process — lead assignment, follow-up sequencing, meeting scheduling, pipeline stage updates — so sales reps spend more time on conversations that actually require a person, and less on manual admin.

CRM Automation

Automated workflows built inside or around a customer relationship management (CRM) system — automatically updating records, triggering follow-up tasks, cleaning duplicate data, or routing new leads to the right owner without manual entry.

Digital Transformation

The broader process of rebuilding how a business operates around digital tools and data — not a single project, but an ongoing shift in workflows, systems and decision-making. AI and automation adoption is usually one part of a wider digital transformation effort, not the whole of it.

Technical SEO

The behind-the-scenes half of SEO: site speed, crawlability, indexing, mobile usability, structured data, canonical tags and site architecture — the factors that determine whether search engines can properly access and understand a site’s content in the first place, regardless of how good that content is.

Entity SEO

Optimizing content and structured data (like schema markup) so search engines and AI systems correctly identify a business, person, product or concept as a distinct, well-defined “entity” — connecting the dots between your website, your brand mentions elsewhere, and what you’re actually known for.

Video Marketing

Using video content — on YouTube, social platforms or paid ads — as a deliberate part of a growth strategy, planned around a distribution and audience goal from the outset rather than produced first and figured out later.

Content Arbitrage

A monetization strategy where content is produced or acquired at a lower cost than the advertising or affiliate revenue it generates once published and distributed — a traffic/yield discipline distinct from client-side performance marketing, where the goal is monetizing the traffic itself rather than converting it into a specific business’s customers.

Search Arbitrage

Buying traffic (often through paid search) at a lower cost than the ad or affiliate revenue it generates once that traffic reaches a monetized page — a specific, technical form of content arbitrage built around paid acquisition rather than organic distribution.

Affiliate Marketing

Earning a commission by promoting another company’s product or service and driving a sale or lead to it, tracked through a unique referral link. It’s a monetization channel distinct from performance marketing done on behalf of a client, since the affiliate is monetizing their own audience or content rather than a client’s.