It's almost impossible to ignore AI. That doesn't mean it's always easy to understand. From agentic AI to UBI, tech CEOs, Wall Street, and politicians increasingly sound like they are speaking another language. The terms seem to change almost as quickly as AI models themselves advance. Even if you don't use AI, chances are your bank, your doctor, the streaming service you're using, and maybe even your car do. Here's a list of the people, companies, and terms you need to know to talk about AI, in alphabetical order. The AI terms you need to know Agentic: A type of artificial intelligence that can make proactive, autonomous decisions with limited human input and is capable of operating autonomously around the clock. Popularized by services like OpenClaw, the proliferation of these tools is viewed as the biggest moment in generative AI since the release of ChatGPT. AGI: "Artificial general intelligence," or the ability of artificial intelligence to perform complex cognitive tasks such as displaying self-awareness and critical thinking, the way humans do. Crossing this theoretical threshold is the mission of many in the industry. Alignment: A field of AI safety research that aims to ensure that the goals, decisions, and behaviors of AI systems are consistent with human values and intentions. Bias: Because AI models are trained on data created by humans, they can also adopt the same fallible human biases present in that data. There are a number of different types of bias that AI models can succumb to, including prejudice bias, measurement bias, cognitive bias, and exclusion bias — all of which can distort the results. Capability overhang: The term, credited to Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott, for the gap between what AI models are capable of and what real-world applications can currently utilize. ChatGPT: OpenAI's signature chatbot