6,895 tools, each one opened, scored and signed by a Toolio reviewer

Glossary

The words you meet while choosing a tool, explained in plain language. What each one is, how it works in practice, and what it changes when you pick a tool.

A

  1. AI agent

    An AI agent is an AI system that takes actions to complete a task, not just answers a question.

  2. AI detector

    An AI detector estimates whether a piece of text, an image or audio was generated by AI.

  3. AI search engine

    An AI search engine answers your question in a written summary with sources, instead of only showing a list of links.

  4. AI upscaling

    AI upscaling increases an image's or video's resolution by predicting the missing detail, rather than just stretching the pixels.

  5. API

    An API, or application programming interface, lets one piece of software talk to another, for example your app sending text to an AI model and getting a reply.

C

  1. Chatbot

    A chatbot is software you talk to in a chat window, which answers questions or completes simple tasks.

  2. Computer vision

    Computer vision is AI that understands images and video, recognising objects, faces, text and scenes.

  3. Content credentials C2PA

    Content credentials are tamper-evident information attached to an image, video or audio file that records how it was made, including whether AI was used.

  4. Context window

    The context window is how much text an AI model can consider at once, including your prompt, any documents and the conversation so far.

  5. Copilot

    A copilot is an AI assistant built into an app you already use, helping as you work rather than working on its own.

  6. Credits

    Credits are the units many AI tools use to price usage: each image, minute of video or long task uses up a number of credits.

D

  1. Deepfake

    A deepfake is AI-generated or AI-altered video, image or audio that makes a real person appear to say or do something they did not.

  2. Diffusion model

    A diffusion model is the type of AI behind most image and video generators; it builds a picture by gradually turning random noise into an image that matches your prompt.

E

  1. Embeddings

    Embeddings are lists of numbers that represent the meaning of a piece of text or an image, so a computer can measure how similar two things are.

F

  1. Fine-tuning

    Fine-tuning is further training an existing AI model on your own examples so it behaves in a specific way.

  2. Freemium

    Freemium is a pricing model where a basic version of a tool is free and more features or higher limits need a paid plan.

G

  1. Generative AI

    Generative AI is AI that creates new content, such as text, images, audio, video or code, rather than only classifying or predicting.

  2. Generative engine optimization GEO

    Generative engine optimization is making your content easy for AI search tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI answers to find, understand and cite.

  3. Guardrails

    Guardrails are rules and filters that stop an AI tool from producing harmful, off-topic or confidential output.

H

  1. Hallucination

    A hallucination is when an AI model states something false or made up as if it were fact.

I

  1. Inference

    Inference is when a trained AI model is used to produce an answer, as opposed to training, when the model is being built.

  2. Inpainting

    Inpainting is editing a selected part of an image with AI, such as removing an object or replacing a background, while the rest stays the same.

K

  1. Knowledge base

    A knowledge base is a structured collection of a company's information, such as help articles, policies and guides, that people and AI tools can search.

L

  1. Large language model LLM

    A large language model is an AI system trained on huge amounts of text to predict the next word, which lets it write, summarise, translate and answer questions.

M

  1. Multimodal AI

    Multimodal AI can work with more than one kind of input or output, such as text, images, audio and video, in the same conversation.

N

  1. Natural language processing NLP

    Natural language processing is the field of AI that deals with understanding and generating human language.

  2. No-code

    No-code tools let people build apps, websites or automations with visual editors instead of writing code.

O

  1. Open-source AI model

    An open-source AI model is one whose weights, the trained model itself, are published so anyone can download, run and modify it.

  2. Optical character recognition OCR

    Optical character recognition reads text from images and scanned documents and turns it into editable, searchable text.

P

  1. Prompt

    A prompt is the instruction or question you give an AI tool, in plain language, to tell it what to produce.

  2. Prompt engineering

    Prompt engineering is the practice of writing and testing prompts so an AI model gives reliable, useful answers.

R

  1. Retrieval-augmented generation RAG

    Retrieval-augmented generation, usually shortened to RAG, means fetching relevant documents before answering rather than relying on what the model memorised during training.

S

  1. SaaS

    SaaS, or software as a service, is software you use online through a subscription instead of installing and owning it.

  2. Sentiment analysis

    Sentiment analysis detects whether a piece of text is positive, negative or neutral, and sometimes the specific emotion.

  3. Speaker diarization

    Speaker diarization is identifying who spoke when in a recording, so a transcript shows each person's lines separately.

  4. Speech-to-text STT

    Speech-to-text converts spoken audio into written text; it is what transcription tools do.

  5. System prompt

    A system prompt is a hidden set of instructions a tool gives an AI model before your message, defining its role, tone and rules.

T

  1. Temperature

    Temperature is a setting that controls how random or predictable an AI model's output is.

  2. Text-to-image

    Text-to-image tools create a picture from a written description.

  3. Text-to-speech TTS

    Text-to-speech turns written text into spoken audio.

  4. Text-to-video

    Text-to-video tools generate a video clip from a written description, and many can also animate a still image.

  5. Token

    A token is the unit of text an AI model reads and writes, usually a word or part of a word.

V

  1. Vector database

    A vector database stores embeddings and finds the ones closest in meaning to a query, very quickly.

  2. Voice cloning

    Voice cloning creates a synthetic copy of a specific person's voice from recordings of them.

W

  1. Workflow automation

    Workflow automation connects apps so that routine tasks run automatically, for example turning a form submission into a CRM record and a welcome email.