Inference
The moment an AI actually answers, as opposed to when it was trained. Training happens once and costs a fortune; inference happens every time somebody asks, and is what you pay for per use.
Related terms
Applebot-Extended
Apple’s equivalent, governing whether your content feeds Apple Intelligence. Ordinary Applebot, which powers Siri and Spotlight, is controlled separately.
Product Schema
Markup for an item you sell: name, price, currency, availability, condition. Without it an assistant reading your shop has to guess the price from the page, and sometimes guesses wrong.
Token
The unit an AI reads and writes in — roughly three quarters of a word. Models are priced and limited by tokens, which is why very long documents cost more and sometimes get truncated.
AI Share of Voice
How often your business is named when assistants are asked about your category, compared with competitors. There is no official figure, so it is measured by asking the same questions repeatedly and counting.
Query Fan-Out
When an assistant turns one question into several searches behind the scenes, then combines what it finds. It means your page can be pulled into an answer about a question you never targeted.
Grounding
Giving an AI real source material to answer from, instead of letting it rely on memory. A grounded answer can be checked and cited; an ungrounded one is where hallucinations come from.