---
title: "Glossary of AI agent terms"
description: "Plain-language definitions of AI agent and voice-AI terms — conversational AI, AI voice agent, omnichannel, speech-to-speech, outbound campaign, latency, and more."
canonical: "https://jelliu.co/glossary"
language: en
last_updated: 2026-06-16
---
# Glossary of AI agent terms

- **AI agent** — Software that holds a goal-directed conversation with a person — over voice, chat, or messaging — and takes actions like qualifying a lead, booking an appointment, or answering a question, without a human running each step.
- **AI voice agent** — An AI agent that talks on phone or web calls in natural, spoken language, understanding the caller and responding in real time with a human-grade voice.
- **Conversational AI** — The broad field of systems that understand and generate natural language to converse with people. Jelliu applies conversational AI to business operations — sales, support, scheduling, and collections.
- **Omnichannel** — Operating across multiple communication channels — voice, WhatsApp, email, web chat — with a single shared conversation context, so a customer can move between channels without repeating themselves.
- **Speech-to-speech** — A voice pipeline where spoken input is understood and a spoken reply is produced with minimal delay, enabling natural, low-latency back-and-forth instead of stilted turn-taking.
- **Latency** — The delay between a person finishing speaking and the agent responding. Low latency is what makes a voice agent feel natural rather than robotic.
- **Outbound campaign** — A batch of proactive calls or messages an agent makes to a contact list — for prospecting, follow-ups, reminders, renewals, or cart recovery — with pacing, retries, and scheduling managed for you.
- **Inbound agent** — An agent that answers incoming calls and messages — handling support, FAQs, routing, and booking — available 24/7 with no hold queue.
- **Speed-to-lead** — How fast a new lead is contacted after they show interest. Conversion drops sharply with delay, so AI agents that respond within seconds materially improve results.
- **Lead qualification** — Determining whether and how well a prospect fits — budget, need, timeline, authority — so human reps spend time only on ready, high-intent contacts.
- **Warm handoff** — Transferring a conversation from an AI agent to a human with full context — who the person is and what was discussed — so the human continues seamlessly instead of starting over.
- **Sentiment analysis** — Automatically scoring the emotional tone of a conversation (positive, neutral, negative). Jelliu scores sentiment in real time so teams can spot at-risk calls as they happen.
- **Concurrency** — The number of conversations an agent can handle at the same time. A single Jelliu agent handles 25+ concurrent calls, and capacity can scale in seconds.
- **No-code** — Building and launching software — here, AI agents and campaigns — through a visual interface, with no programming required. Jelliu is no-code, with an optional API for deeper integration.
- **Knowledge base** — The documents and facts an agent draws on to answer accurately — products, policies, FAQs. Grounding answers in a knowledge base keeps responses correct and on-brand.
- **CRM integration** — Connecting the agent to your customer system so contacts, conversations, and outcomes flow in and out automatically. Jelliu offers native CRM integrations, a REST API, webhooks, and 1,000+ apps via Zapier.
- **TCPA compliance** — Adhering to U.S. rules governing automated calls and texts — consent, calling-hour windows, opt-outs. Jelliu is built to support TCPA-aligned, auditable calling and messaging workflows.
- **BPO (Business Process Outsourcing)** — Contracting a third party to run operations like a contact center. AI agents let BPOs scale capacity instantly, cover more languages, and keep humans on complex, high-value work.