// Glossary · 45 terms
The words founders Google before they buy.
Plain-English definitions of fractional AI concepts, sales tools, ops patterns, and compliance acronyms. Short, honest, no fluff.
Fractional concepts
4- Fractional AI DepartmentA whole business function (Sales, Content, Ops, Support) operated for you by AI agents on a monthly retainer, instead of being built with a salary stack.
- Fractional CAIOA part-time Chief AI Officer engagement that gives funded teams strategic AI direction without the cost of a full-time executive hire.
- Fractional CMOA part-time Chief Marketing Officer on retainer who runs strategy without taking a permanent seat, often paired with an AI Content Department for execution.
- Fractional COOA part-time COO on retainer who gives funded teams the operations leadership they need without the cost of a full-time C-suite hire.
Sales
10- AI Cold OutreachCold outbound (email, LinkedIn, sometimes voice) where an AI agent handles every step from prospect research through follow-up, with a human on the warm-reply handoff.
- AI SDRAn AI agent that handles SDR work end to end: sourcing, enrichment, personalization, sequencing, and follow-up until a prospect replies.
- Cold Email DeliverabilityThe discipline of getting cold outbound emails into the inbox, not the spam folder. Covers domain warming, sending volume caps, reputation, and spam-trap monitoring.
- Domain WarmupGradually building sending volume on a new domain over weeks so spam filters trust it. Required before any meaningful cold outbound from a fresh domain.
- Intent DataBehavioral signals indicating a prospect is in-market for a solution. Sources include website visits, search behavior, content downloads, and third-party providers.
- Lead EnrichmentThe process of attaching additional context (firmographic, demographic, technographic, behavioral) to a raw lead so outreach can be relevant.
- RB2BTools that identify anonymous B2B visitors to a website by company and sometimes person, so outbound can target real intent signals.
- Reply RateThe percentage of cold outbound emails that get a reply, positive or negative. Honest industry rate is 1-2%; AI-personalized cadences run 4-6%.
- Sequence CadenceThe schedule and channel mix of an outbound sequence: which messages go out on which days, mixing email, LinkedIn, and occasionally voice.
- Warm ReplyA positive response from a prospect to outbound that is qualified enough to hand off to a human rep for a discovery call.
Content
7- AI Content EngineA continuously running content production layer (articles, social, landing pages, email) operated by AI agents on a single retainer, instead of a marketing team plus an agency.
- AI OverviewGoogle AI-generated summary at the top of search results, citing a few sources. Being cited drives high-quality traffic; not being cited reduces clicks.
- AI Social EngineAn automated workflow that drafts, schedules, and publishes social content (LinkedIn, X, Instagram) on cadence, with the founder approving in minutes rather than writing from scratch.
- Brand-Trained AIAn AI writing model fine-tuned or prompt-tuned against a brand existing copy so output preserves voice, style, and positioning at scale.
- E-E-A-TGoogle framework for evaluating content quality across Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Higher E-E-A-T pages rank better.
- Programmatic SEOProducing hundreds or thousands of search-targeted pages by combining a content template with data inputs, so each page targets a long-tail query.
- Schema MarkupMachine-readable metadata that tells search engines what a page is (Article, Service, FAQ, Product). Powers rich results and AI Overview citations.
Ops
9- AI Board ReportingAn automated reporting workflow that pulls source data (Stripe, HubSpot, Notion, banking), refreshes live dashboards, and drafts the narrative for board updates without the COO stitching it on Sunday.
- Auto-Narrative ReportingAI-generated written commentary attached to a dashboard or board update that explains what numbers moved, why, and what to do about it.
- Churn RatePercentage of customers or revenue lost over a period. The most important SaaS metric most ops teams cannot calculate accurately.
- Cohort MRRMRR sliced by acquisition cohort (signup month or quarter) so each cohort retention and expansion can be measured against others. Foundational SaaS ops metric.
- Dashboard GraveyardThe inevitable end state of every dashboarding tool deployed without a function to own it. Looker, Tableau, Metabase boards drift out of date within a quarter and nobody trusts them.
- Internal AI CopilotAn AI agent trained on a company internal knowledge (wiki, Notion, Drive, Slack history) that answers tier-1 internal questions so engineers and operators are not the help desk.
- LTV:CAC RatioLifetime value of a customer divided by cost to acquire them. Healthy SaaS is 3:1 or higher with sub-12-month payback.
- NDR (Net Dollar Retention)Revenue from a cohort of customers a year later divided by their original revenue, including expansion. Above 110% is good SaaS; above 130% is exceptional.
- PQL (Product Qualified Lead)A prospect who has demonstrated value-realizing behavior inside a product (key actions, usage thresholds) and is therefore qualified for sales contact based on usage rather than firmographic fit.
Support
4- AI Tier-1 SupportAn AI agent trained on a company knowledge base, product docs, and policies that handles routine support questions without human involvement.
- Churn Risk ModelingScoring customer accounts on probability of cancellation using usage signals, ticket sentiment, engagement drops, and billing events so the team can intervene early.
- KB-Trained AIAn AI agent ingested with a company documentation, help articles, and historical support transcripts so its answers stay grounded in actual product behavior.
- Multi-Tenant SupportCustomer support inside a SaaS context where every ticket carries account-specific context (plan tier, integrations enabled, API behavior, admin permissions) that must be read before responding.
Technical
4- Fine-TuningTraining an existing AI model further on a specific dataset to specialize it for a domain. Used for brand voice, internal copilots, and domain-specific tasks.
- Local LLMA large language model deployed on private hardware (Llama 3, Qwen, Mistral) rather than accessed via a hosted API like OpenAI or Anthropic.
- On-Device AI AgentAn AI agent running on hardware controlled by the buyer (on-prem server, local workstation, isolated VM) with no inference traffic leaving the network.
- RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation)AI technique where the model retrieves relevant context from a document store before generating, so answers stay grounded in your data instead of hallucinating.
Compliance
5- DPA (Data Processing Agreement)Contract between a data controller and processor required under GDPR. Defines scope, security measures, subprocessors, and liability.
- GDPREU regulation on personal data. Requires lawful basis for processing, data subject rights, breach notification, and DPO appointment for larger processors.
- HIPAA AIAI agents configured for healthcare workloads where PHI is involved, requiring a signed BAA, sometimes on-device deployment, and clinician escalation guardrails.
- KYC AIAI agents that handle Know Your Customer and Anti Money Laundering workflows for regulated financial businesses, often deployed on-device to keep customer PII inside the perimeter.
- SOC 2AICPA audit framework covering security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy. Enterprise SaaS sales gate.
General
2- 14-Day SprintEOI standard fractional engagement starting cadence. Days 1-3 audit, 4-10 build, 11-14 handoff. By end of week 4 the department is operating autonomously.
- AI Strategy AuditA half-day workshop and written roadmap that maps a company AI opportunities to its stack, team, and goals with prioritized recommendations.