Lowtide
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Glossary

Plain-English definitions

42 terms from the five areas Lowtide covers. Short, practical, and honest about what changes over time.

A

  • Accessibility statementAccessibilityA page that says how accessible your website is, known problems, and how to report one.
  • AI due diligence questionnaireAI governanceA list of questions a customer sends a supplier about how it uses AI, handles data and manages risk.
  • AI inventory (AI profile)AI governanceA maintained list of the AI systems and tools your business uses or builds, with what data they touch and who owns them.
  • AI visibilityAI visibilityHow often AI assistants mention or recommend your brand when people ask questions you want to be the answer to.
  • Alt textAccessibilityA short written description of an image, read aloud by screen readers.
  • ARIAAccessibilityA set of attributes that add accessibility information to web elements when plain HTML is not enough.
  • AttestationRecordsA named person confirming that the records they own are present, correct and where the register says.
  • Audit trailRecordsA record of who did what and when, that cannot be quietly changed afterwards.
  • axe-coreAccessibilityAn open-source engine that automatically tests web pages for common accessibility problems.

B

  • Budget alertAI spendA warning sent when spend passes a set amount or looks far above normal.

C

  • Certified disposalRecordsDestroying records at the end of their retention period and keeping evidence that it was done.
  • Citation (in AI answers)AI visibilityA source an assistant links to or names when it gives an answer.
  • COBS 9.5 (suitability records)RecordsFCA rules on keeping records of suitability assessments and advice given to clients.
  • Colour contrastAccessibilityThe difference in brightness between text and its background.
  • Context windowAI spendThe maximum amount of text a model can consider in one request, including your input and its reply.

E

  • EU AI ActAI governanceThe EU's law regulating AI systems by risk level, from banned uses to high-risk systems to minimal-risk ones.
  • European Accessibility Act (EAA)AccessibilityAn EU law that requires many consumer-facing products and services, including e-commerce, to be accessible.

G

H

  • HallucinationAI visibilityWhen an AI model states something confidently that is not true.
  • High-risk AI systemAI governanceUnder the EU AI Act, an AI system used in areas such as hiring, credit or education that carries stricter obligations.
  • Human oversightAI governanceMaking sure a person can understand, monitor and override what an AI system does.

I

  • InferenceAI spendRunning a trained model to produce an answer. It is what you pay for when you call an AI API.
  • ISO/IEC 42001AI governanceAn international standard for an AI management system, published in 2023.

K

  • Keyboard trapAccessibilityA place where someone using only a keyboard can get in but cannot get out.

L

  • Large language model (LLM)AI visibilityA model trained on large amounts of text that can read and write language, the technology behind ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.
  • Legal holdRecordsAn instruction to keep certain records even if their normal retention period has ended, usually because of a dispute or investigation.

M

N

P

  • PromptAI visibilityThe question or instruction given to an AI model.
  • Prompt cachingAI spendA provider feature that charges less for the repeated beginning of a prompt.

R

  • Rate limitAI spendA cap on how many requests or tokens you can send to an API in a period.
  • Records registerRecordsA list of the records your firm holds, where each is kept, who owns it and how long it must be retained.
  • Retention scheduleRecordsThe rules for how long each type of record must be kept before it can be disposed of.
  • Retrieval testRecordsPulling a sample of records on request to prove you can find and produce them quickly.
  • Runaway spendAI spendAn unexpectedly large AI bill caused by a bug, a retry loop, a leaked key or sudden traffic.

S

  • Screen readerAccessibilitySoftware that reads a page aloud or outputs it to a braille display.
  • SYSC 9 (FCA record-keeping)RecordsThe part of the FCA Handbook that requires firms to keep orderly records sufficient to let the regulator monitor compliance.

T

  • TokenAI spendThe small unit of text an AI model reads and writes, and the unit providers charge by.

U

  • UK GDPRAI governanceThe UK's version of the General Data Protection Regulation, which governs how personal data is collected, used and kept.

W

  • WCAGAccessibilityThe Web Content Accessibility Guidelines: the international standard for making websites usable by people with disabilities.
  • WCAG 2.2 AAAccessibilityThe 2.2 version of WCAG at conformance level AA, the usual target for business websites.
  • Web search groundingAI visibilityWhen an assistant looks up live web pages and uses them to build its answer instead of relying only on training data.

General information, not legal advice. Rules and dates change, so check the source before relying on them.