# The plain-English AI glossary

> Every term the AI on the Job books define, in one place: 9 words that mean the same thing in any job, and 68 that belong to a particular trade.

## The words that mean the same thing in any job

- **AI (artificial intelligence)** — In this book, always means the chat tools (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot) that write drafts from your instructions. Not therapy bots, not your EHR’s scheduler.
- **Prompt** — The instructions you type or say to the AI. The only jargon this book asked you to learn. Good ones state context, the job, and the format.
- **Makes things up** — The AI’s one dangerous habit: stating false things (prices, claims, rules) in a confident voice. The industry calls it “hallucination.” The fix is the 60-second check: numbers, promises, rules.
- **Custom instructions / profile** — The settings box where you describe your business once (Prompt #1) so every chat starts smart.
- **Voice mode** — The microphone button. Talking beats typing for every truck-based workflow in this book.
- **Model** — The engine behind the chat window. Paid tiers use stronger ones. You never need to know more than that.
- **Free tier / paid tier** — Free gets you started and has daily limits; the ~$20/month tier removes them. Upgrade when the limits bite during a workday, not before.
- **Business/Team account** — The ~$25–30/user tier with contractual data protections and admin controls. The right tier once employees use AI daily (see Chapter 10, Rule 1).
- **The bracket habit** — Writing [GUEST NAME] in every draft and filling in real names only in your own systems. The habit that keeps guest data out of chat windows.

## The words that belong to one trade

- **Adopted code and local amendments** — The plumbing code your state or city actually adopted, plus every change they made to it. Nothing the AI writes outranks that document. *(from AI for Plumbing Pros)*
- **AHJ (Authority Having Jurisdiction)** — Your inspector/code office. The only authority on what passes. The AI is never this. *(from AI for Contractors & Construction Managers)*
- **All-party consent** — The recording law in some states: everyone in a conversation must consent before it’s recorded or auto-transcribed. Verify your state and your company’s policy before any bot joins any meeting. Minutes from your own typed notes are always safe. *(from AI for Executive & Admin Assistants)*
- **AUS / underwriting** — The automated systems (DU/LP-class) and human underwriters who actually decide loans. The AI in this book is never either one. *(from AI for Loan Officers & Mortgage Pros)*
- **Automated employment decision tool** — Software that screens, scores, or ranks candidates or employees. Regulated in a growing list of jurisdictions (bias audits, notices); nothing in this book is one. *(from AI for HR & Recruiting Professionals)*
- **BAA (Business Associate Agreement)** — The legal contract that lets a vendor lawfully handle PHI for your facility. Your employer’s clinical AI tools have one. Your personal ChatGPT account does not — which is the legal core of Rule 1. *(from AI for Nurses)*
- **BAA (business associate agreement)** — The contract that must exist before any vendor’s tool touches PHI. No consumer AI account at any price is one. *(from AI for Pharmacists)*
- **BEO (Banquet Event Order)** — The venue’s master document of counts, times, setups, and charges. The AI can cross-check yours against your specs (#73); the venue’s signature makes it real, not the AI’s summary. *(from AI for Event & Wedding Planners)*
- **Books and records** — The retention obligations that mean client communications and advertisements get archived and are examinable. The reason “it was just a quick post” isn’t a category. *(from AI for Financial Advisors)*
- **Brackets** — The [FAKE NAME] habit: placeholders in every draft, real client and guest data only in your own systems, filled in after the text leaves the chat window. The single habit Chapter 10 is built on. *(from AI for Event & Wedding Planners)*
- **Business/enterprise account** — The employer-provided tier (Copilot in Microsoft 365, Gemini in Workspace, ChatGPT/Claude Team) with contractual data terms and admin controls. The only lane where real company content belongs. *(from AI for Executive & Admin Assistants)*
- **Business/Enterprise account** — The company-administered tier with contractual data protections and admin controls. The tier where real prospect and pricing data becomes defensible (see Chapter 10, Rule 2). If your company offers a seat, take it. *(from AI for Sales Professionals)*
- **CCLI-class licensing** — The copyright coverage for projected worship lyrics — with a separate license for streaming the music. Chapter 10, Rule 5: church use is not a copyright exemption. *(from AI for Pastors & Church Leaders)*
- **ChMS (church management system)** — Planning Center, Breeze, and their class. Where member data, giving records, and attendance live — and stay. Consumer AI tools never see what’s inside. *(from AI for Pastors & Church Leaders)*
- **COI (center of influence)** — The CPAs, estate attorneys, and other professionals whose referrals build small firms. Chapter 7 is the writing discipline that channel runs on. *(from AI for Financial Advisors)*
- **Contemporaneous record** — A record made at the time of the event — the daily log, the dated photo, the same-day change order. The paperwork that wins disputes, and the cheapest insurance in this book. *(from AI for Contractors & Construction Managers)*
- **Context window** — How much it can hold in front of it at once: everything you have pasted into this chat plus everything it has written back. It is a workbench. Fill it and the oldest items slide off the end, which is why a long, wandering chat starts forgetting your pricing. *(from AI for Plumbing Pros)*
- **Corresponding responsibility** — Your personal, legal duty on every controlled-substance fill. Entirely human, entirely yours; no workflow in this book approaches it. *(from AI for Pharmacists)*
- **Counsel flag** — The [COUNSEL: CONFIRM] marker this book’s prompts build into legally sensitive drafts, so no handbook section, termination document, or policy ships on AI fluency alone. *(from AI for HR & Recruiting Professionals)*
- **CPT code** — The billing code for a service (90837 for a 53+ minute session, 90834 for 38–52). The AI does not reliably know codes — every code in every document comes from your billing records. *(from AI for Therapists & Counselors)*
- **Custom instructions (profile)** — The settings box where you describe your shop once, using Prompt #1, so you stop retyping it at the start of every chat. *(from AI for Plumbing Pros)*
- **De-identify** — Stripping names, account numbers, balances, and anything identifying before text goes near a chat window. Initials, [BRACKETS], and ranges survive; identity never enters the tool. *(from AI for Financial Advisors)*
- **Delegated authority** — The explicit agreement about what you may send, sign, or approve in your exec’s name. Drafting is always yours; sending beyond the agreement never is (Chapter 10, Rule 4). *(from AI for Executive & Admin Assistants)*
- **Docketing system** — Your firm’s rules-based deadline calendar. The only authority on dates in this entire book. The AI organizes around its verified output and never computes a deadline itself. *(from AI for Paralegals)*
- **Draft → compliance → publish** — The standing workflow for every piece of marketing in this book. Not a hurdle; the assembly line. *(from AI for Loan Officers & Mortgage Pros)*
- **Drafting vs. deciding** — This book’s central line. AI drafts documents and organizes information; humans make every employment decision — hiring, rating, discipline, termination. The legal reasons live in Chapter 10. *(from AI for HR & Recruiting Professionals)*
- **DVI (digital vehicle inspection)** — The photo-documented inspection your shop management system sends customers. The AI’s job is the words around it, and the captions customers actually understand (#118). *(from AI for Auto Repair Shops)*
- **ELD (electronic logging device)** — The system of record for your hours, and with your fuel receipts, the backbone of your IFTA records. The AI plans within the hours your ELD shows. It is never an authority on them, and it never touches a log. *(from AI for Trucking Owner-Operators)*
- **Employer-approved tools** — The only lane where AI ever touches clinical work: ambient scribes, EHR drafting features, and anything else your facility provides, governs, and trains you on. Their rules apply there; this book’s workflows live entirely outside that lane. *(from AI for Nurses)*
- **Formulary** — The approved drug reference (Plumb’s-class) that, with the label and the veterinarian, is the only source a dose ever comes from. The chat window is not this, ever. *(from AI for Veterinary Teams)*
- **Free tier / paid tier / business tier** — Free gets you started; ~$20/month removes daily limits; business tiers (~$25–30/user) add contractual data terms for your store’s information. None of them changes the PHI rule. *(from AI for HR & Recruiting Professionals)*
- **Google Business Profile (GBP)** — Your listing in Google search and maps — for a local business, more important than your website. Chapter 9’s overhaul is the highest-leverage hour in this book. *(from AI for Small Business Owners)*
- **Hallucination** — The one habit that can cost you. It states a wrong thing — a price, a code section, a fixture count — in the same confident voice it uses for right ones, and there is no tell. The fix is the 60-second check: numbers, promises, rules. *(from AI for Plumbing Pros)*
- **Health department / your inspector** — The only authority on food-safety times, temps, and process in your county. The AI is never this. *(from AI for Restaurant & Café Owners)*
- **Interactive process** — The legally required dialogue after an accommodation request. AI may draft its generic scaffolding (Prompt #92); the substance and decisions stay with humans and counsel, and medical details never enter a chat window. *(from AI for HR & Recruiting Professionals)*
- **Manual J / S / D** — The ACCA load-calculation, equipment-selection, and duct-design procedures. Sizing comes from these and your measurements — never from a chat window (Chapter 10, Rule 2). *(from AI for HVAC Pros)*
- **Marketing Rule** — Shorthand for the SEC’s investment-adviser advertising rule (state equivalents exist; FINRA Rule 2210 governs the brokerage side). Plain-English shape in Chapter 10; your compliance officer has the specifics that bind you. *(from AI for Financial Advisors)*
- **NEC (National Electrical Code)** — The code your state adopts and amends, edition by edition. The adopted text plus your local amendments — never the AI — is the authority (Chapter 10, Rule 2). *(from AI for Electricians)*
- **Note debt** — The pile of unfinished documentation and the Sunday it eats. Chapter 4’s target: better templates and a retrained note-writing muscle, with clinical content never leaving your own systems. *(from AI for Therapists & Counselors)*
- **Owned list** — The email and text list customers gave you permission to use. Social followers are rented reach; the owned list is yours, and no algorithm can take it away. *(from AI for Small Business Owners)*
- **Paper trail** — The same-day written confirmation habit (Chapter 6). In an E&O dispute, the agency with the documentation wins; “effective when the carrier confirms” is its most important sentence. *(from AI for Insurance Agents)*
- **PAR-Q** — The physical activity readiness questionnaire (and its cousins). Client health information that lives in your own records — never in a chat window. *(from AI for Fitness Trainers & Coaches)*
- **PHI (protected health information)** — Any individually identifiable health information — which means claims data: names, DOBs, member IDs, dates of service, diagnoses tied to a person. The thing that never enters a chat window. See Chapter 10, Rule 1. *(from AI for Medical Billers & Coders)*
- **PHI (Protected Health Information)** — Anything that connects health information to a person — far more than a name. Rooms, dates, ages plus details, rare conditions, small-town specifics. The one thing that never, under any circumstances, goes into a consumer AI tool. Chapter 10, Rule 1. *(from AI for Nurses)*
- **PMS (practice management software)** — ezyVet, Cornerstone, Shepherd, and their kin. Where your real records, prices, and reminders live. The AI drafts words; the PMS holds truth. *(from AI for Veterinary Teams)*
- **Protected class** — The categories fair housing law forbids you to consider or reference: federally, race, color, religion, national origin, sex, familial status, and disability — with state and local law adding more. The reason every listing describes property, never people. *(from AI for Property Managers)*
- **Re-identification** — How “anonymized” fails: details that don’t identify alone, identifying together. If a coworker or neighbor could recognize the patient, it was PHI. *(from AI for Nurses)*
- **Research-to-relevance** — This book’s prospecting method: the AI compresses the research you actually did into three relevant sentences. It never fakes familiarity you don’t have. *(from AI for Sales Professionals)*
- **RO (repair order)** — The document of record for every job: complaint, cause, correction, authorization. AI drafts ride on top of it; they never substitute for its legally required parts. *(from AI for Auto Repair Shops)*
- **Scope of practice** — The professional boundary drawn by your certification, your insurer, and in places the law: you educate and program exercise; you don’t diagnose, treat, or prescribe. The AI drifts across it constantly — the scope screen (Prompt #10) catches it. *(from AI for Fitness Trainers & Coaches)*
- **Section 608** — The federal EPA certification and refrigerant-handling rules. Your cert, your recovery log, your signature — the AI drafts words, never refrigerant claims (Chapter 10, Rule 3). *(from AI for HVAC Pros)*
- **State board** — Your state’s cosmetology or barbering board: the authority on licensing, scope, and advertising rules. The AI is never this. *(from AI for Salon & Barbershop Owners)*
- **Statutory document** — Paperwork whose wording, timing, and delivery your state prescribes: pay-or-quit and termination notices, deposit disposition itemizations, entry notices in many states. State forms and attorneys write these; the AI writes only the cover message around them. *(from AI for Property Managers)*
- **Superbill** — The itemized receipt (with CPT and diagnosis codes) an out-of-network client submits to their insurer for possible reimbursement. Prompt #66 explains it to clients so you stop doing so weekly. *(from AI for Therapists & Counselors)*
- **Team/business account** — The ~$25–30/user tier with contractual data protections and admin controls. The right tier once staff and key volunteers use AI weekly. The covenant rules don’t relax there. *(from AI for Pastors & Church Leaders)*
- **The authority hierarchy** — Documentation → current code sets and official guidelines → NCCI edits and payer policy → then the claim. The chain that decides every coding question. The AI sits below it, translating — never in it. *(from AI for Medical Billers & Coders)*
- **The fictional-case habit** — The discipline that keeps every workflow confidential: prompts describe invented matters with the same legal shape as your real one, or use [BRACKETS]; real details enter only your firm’s systems, afterward. *(from AI for Paralegals)*
- **The nutrition line** — General healthy-eating education is broadly trainer territory; individualized meal plans and medical nutrition therapy are legally restricted in a number of states. Where the line sits varies — verify yours with your state and certifying body. *(from AI for Fitness Trainers & Coaches)*
- **The policy controls** — This book’s wall rule: what a policy covers is answered by the policy language and the carrier, never by an AI draft. Every client-facing coverage sentence is verified against the actual form or cut. *(from AI for Insurance Agents)*
- **The record** — Your CRM, your forecast, your expenses. It says what’s true. Pressure is not permission, and AI never launders fiction (Chapter 10, Rule 5). *(from AI for Sales Professionals)*
- **The standing workflow** — Drafted by AI, approved by you, reviewed and archived per your firm’s compliance process. Applies to everything client-facing or public, every time, no matter how small. *(from AI for Financial Advisors)*
- **The two-lane system** — Company content in company-approved tools only; generic drafting, skills, and your own career material in your personal account, with [BRACKETS] everywhere. The lanes never merge (Chapter 10, Rule 2). *(from AI for Executive & Admin Assistants)*
- **Token** — The chunks these tools count in, each about a short word. It matters only because it is the unit the daily limits and the monthly bill are measured in. *(from AI for Plumbing Pros)*
- **Trigger terms** — Specific credit terms (a rate, a payment amount, certain down-payment or term specifics) that, stated in an ad, can require additional disclosures under TILA. This book’s default: none in self-serve content; anything with numbers is built with compliance. *(from AI for Loan Officers & Mortgage Pros)*
- **TSB (technical service bulletin)** — The manufacturer’s revised-procedure notice. The AI summarizes them well (#108) — and every part number and spec it repeats gets a VERIFY against the source. *(from AI for Auto Repair Shops)*
- **UPL (unauthorized practice of law)** — What a paralegal never does and AI never changes: no legal advice, no fee-setting, no signing filings. Attorney supervision and review is the system, for you and for every draft the AI touches. *(from AI for Paralegals)*
- **VCPR (veterinarian-client-patient relationship)** — The legal relationship inside which all diagnosing, prescribing, and dosing happens. The AI is never inside it. *(from AI for Veterinary Teams)*
- **VERIFY** — The tag this book’s prompts force onto anything code-, load-, or AHJ-dependent in an AI draft. It means: look it up properly before it reaches paper. *(from AI for Electricians)*

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*AI on the Job Press · Greenlight Publishing · 2027 edition*