Function Calling
When a model, instead of answering from memory, asks to run a specific tool — look up a price, check stock — and uses the result. It is what turns a chat assistant into something that can act.
Related terms
Speakable Schema
Markup identifying the parts of a page suitable to be read aloud by a voice assistant. Narrow in application, but it removes the guesswork about which sentence answers the question.
Prompt Engineering
The craft of writing instructions that get reliable results from an AI — being specific, giving examples, saying what to avoid. Less mysterious than it sounds, and mostly the same skill as briefing a new colleague well.
Prompt
The instruction or question you give an AI. The wording matters more than people expect: the same request phrased two ways can produce noticeably different answers.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
Answer Engine Optimization is the work of becoming the source that answers a question rather than one of ten links offered. It matters because search increasingly replies with a written answer, and only one or two businesses get named inside it.
User-Agent
The name a browser or bot gives when it requests a page. It is how a server tells Googlebot from ChatGPT from a person, and how robots.txt rules are addressed to one and not another.
AI Brand Mention
Your business being named in an AI answer, with or without a link. Worth tracking separately from traffic, because a mention can win the customer without ever producing a click.