GLOSSARY

Glossary for AI-first product builders

72 plain definitions across customer feedback, priorities and specs. Each term says what it means, and what changes about it when the product is built with AI.

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A

Acceptance criteriaAcceptance criteria are the conditions a piece of work must meet to count as done.AmbientAmbient signal is what's changing around your customers: community conversations, competitor releases, industry shifts and sector sentiment.AutomatedAutomated means a person decides the rules and a system follows them.AutonomousAutonomous means a system decides what to do next inside boundaries you set.Autonomous product intelligenceAutonomous product intelligence turns customer signal into product decisions continuously, while you keep building.Answer engine optimization (AEO)Answer engine optimization means writing content that can be used directly in an answer, not just linked to.Answer engineAn answer engine gives you a written answer instead of a list of links.AI assistantsAn AI assistant responds when you ask it to do something: write, summarize, answer a question or draft code.

B

BehaviorBehavior signal is what customers show you through what they do.Business intelligenceBusiness intelligence collects company data and presents it so you can see how the business is doing: revenue, pipeline, headcount and margins.

C

Close the loopClosing the loop means telling a customer that their feedback shaped something you shipped.Codebase-aware specA codebase-aware spec uses the real repository as context.Compound signalCompound signal comes from reading voice, behavior and ambient signal together.Continuous discoveryContinuous discovery means talking to customers regularly in small amounts instead of running occasional large research projects.Customer churnCustomer churn is the share of customers who leave during a period by canceling, not renewing or going quiet.Customer feedbackCustomer feedback is anything a customer tells you about their experience: a support ticket, survey answer, sales-call comment or message in a shared Slack channel.Customer feedback loopA customer feedback loop is the full path from feedback arriving to the customer hearing what happened.Customer feedback managementCustomer feedback management is the work of turning customer signal into product decisions while you build.Customer feedback prioritizationCustomer feedback prioritization ranks feedback by more than volume.Customer insightsA customer insight is a conclusion drawn from customer evidence.Customer interviewA customer interview is a conversation run to learn about someone's experience, not to sell or give a demo.Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)Customer satisfaction score measures how satisfied someone was with a specific interaction.Customer retentionCustomer retention is the share of customers who keep using a product over time.

D

Definition of doneA definition of done is your team's shared standard for finished work.

F

Feature prioritizationFeature prioritization is deciding what to build first when there is more work than time.Feature prioritization frameworkA feature prioritization framework gives you a consistent way to compare work.Feature requestA feature request is a customer asking you to add or change something.Feedback managementFeedback management is the work of collecting, sorting and acting on feedback.Feedback polarizationFeedback polarization is the tendency for submitted feedback to over-represent very good and very bad experiences.

G

Generative engine optimization (GEO)Generative engine optimization makes content more likely to appear in AI-generated answers.

H

Human in the loopHuman in the loop describes a system that pauses for a person to review, approve or correct an automated result before it takes effect.

J

Jobs to be doneJobs to be done describes the progress customers are trying to make, not who they are or which feature they requested.

K

Kano modelThe Kano model groups features by how they affect customer satisfaction.

L

llms.txtllms.txt is a proposed convention for a markdown file at the root of a website.

M

ManualManual means people decide and start every step while the system only stores the records.Minimum viable product (MVP)A minimum viable product is the smallest thing you can build to learn whether an idea works.MCP serverAn MCP server exposes tools or data to an AI application through the Model Context Protocol.Model Context Protocol (MCP)The Model Context Protocol is an open standard for connecting AI applications to external tools and data.MCP clientAn MCP client is the AI application that connects to MCP servers.MoSCoW methodMoSCoW sorts requirements into 4 groups: must have, should have, could have and will not have this time.

N

Net promoter score (NPS)Net promoter score comes from 1 question: how likely are you to recommend this product from 0 to 10?North star metricA north star metric is the 1 number your team agrees best represents the value customers get from the product.

P

PRD (Product Requirements Document)A product requirements document explains the why and the what for new functionality.Product backlogA product backlog is the list of everything your team might build: requests, bugs, ideas and half-formed thoughts.Product developmentProduct development is the whole path from an idea to something customers can use: discovery, design, building, shipping and finding out what happened.Product discoveryProduct discovery is learning what to build before you build it.Product intelligence graphA product intelligence graph connects the full history of product decisions.Product managementProduct management is deciding what a product should do next and making sure it gets built.Product memoryProduct memory is the record a feedback system builds across time.Product requirementsProduct requirements describe what a product must do and the limits it must work within.Product roadmapA product roadmap is a shared view of what your team intends to build and roughly when.Product specA product spec is a short, build-ready description of bounded work.Product-market fitProduct-market fit is the point where a product meets a real need well enough that demand pulls instead of needing to be pushed.Problem statementA problem statement says what is going wrong, who experiences it and what it costs them.Product analyticsProduct analytics measures what people do inside a product: which features they use, where they stop and how often they return.Product strategyProduct strategy is the set of choices about who your product is for, which problem it solves and what it will deliberately not do.

R

Raising the ceilingRaising the ceiling means expanding what a product can do.Raising the floorRaising the floor means improving the basic experience every customer depends on.Release notesRelease notes are the public record of what changed in a product: new features, fixes and anything that now behaves differently.RICE frameworkRICE is a prioritization score with 4 inputs: reach, impact, confidence and effort.

S

Shipped notificationA shipped notification tells a customer that the feature they asked for is now available.Signal strengthSignal strength measures how useful and important a piece of feedback is, not just how often it appears.Spec-driven developmentSpec-driven development means writing down what should be built and why before the build starts, then keeping that document as the source of truth while work happens.Scope creepScope creep is work growing after it was agreed without the deadline or effort changing with it.

T

The signal-to-decision gapThe signal-to-decision gap is the time and work between customer evidence arriving and a product decision being made.The silent majorityThe silent majority is the customers who shape product performance but never write in.Translation layerThe translation layer turns customer signal into engineering work.The voice-behavior gapThe voice-behavior gap is the difference between what customers say and what they do.

U

User storyA user story is a short description of work from the point of view of the person who wants it.

V

VoiceVoice signal is what customers explicitly tell you.Voice of Customer (VoC)Voice of the customer is the established practice of capturing what customers say through surveys, reviews, support tickets and other direct channels.Voice of Market (VoM)Voice of market is the signal coming from outside your customer feedback channels.

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