"Let me grab you a Kleenex."

"My inbox is full of spam."

"The recruiter ghosted me."

These words didn’t always exist in our daily lives. They were born out of new behaviors, new technologies, and new ways of thinking. Language is always evolving, and people use words to co-create a shared reality. As a trained linguist, I am fascinated by which words successfully jump into the mainstream.

Over the past three years, if you haven’t been living under a rock, you most likely used the words “ChatGPT,” “prompt,” “LLM,” and “hallucinate” in a conversation. Living in Silicon Valley and working in the tech world, I see a fresh wave of language coming into our daily lexicon. In fact, I have to stop by clients and ask, “What does that word mean?” It’s a sign that our relationship with AI is deepening. 

Which of these do you think will be as common as "Googling" in five years?

Glaze /ɡleɪz/ (verb): Like the sugary coating on a donut, when AI chatbots flatter you to keep you engaged, glazing is a real problem. Call it agreeableness, call it sycophancy, call it pandering. Like AI Slop, we have to learn how to discern between the two. In my casual conversations with friends, I’ve heard people say, “Are you glazing me?”

No Cap /noʊ kæp/ (phrase): The antidote to the "glaze" and a request for the raw, unvarnished truth. This term comes from Atlanta Hip-Hop and means lying or bragging. And because of internet culture, now you ask LLMs to answer your prompts no cap. In meetings with people who use AI to do their work, when someone is beating around the bush or trying to persuade you with kindness, you can say: "Give it to me no cap.”

Vibe Code /vaɪb koʊd/ (verb): Following a feeling rather than a logical sequence of thought to create something. Raw, unfiltered, extemporaneous output. Right now, vibe coding mostly applies to coding, but I wonder if I can explain to my husband that I am "vibe cooking" rather than following the directions in one of his cookbooks. I don’t use GPS, and I vibe drive to LA. That would be hilarious.

Discern /dɪˈsɜːrn/ (verb): The act of separating signal from noise. In an era of AI Slop and high-quality "glazing," to discern is to move past merely reading and into the realm of judging truth. While an AI can detect a pattern, only a human can discern the intent behind it. Those who can’t discern will be users as products. Those who can discern will become the leaders of tomorrow. 

Agent & Sub-agent /ˈeɪ.dʒənt/ (noun): An Agent is an AI that can take action. A Sub-agent is a specialized mini-AI "hired" by the main Agent to handle a specific part of a task. "I assigned the project to my lead Agent, and it hired a Sub-agent to handle the data visualization."

Orchestrate /ˈɔːr.kə.streɪt/ (verb): Your new job description. You aren't the "doer" anymore. You are the conductor. You don't just write the email; you orchestrate the agents and sub-agents that do.

Agentic Workflow /eɪˈdʒɛn.tɪk ˈwɜːrk.floʊ/ (noun): An agentic workflow is like giving an AI a to-do list. The AI acts like a project manager. It makes a plan, looks things up, checks its own work for mistakes, and fixes them before showing you the final result. OpenClaw is the poster child for the agentic workflow.

Model /ˈmɑː.dəl/ (noun): The engine that has "read" billions of pages of text to learn how patterns, facts, and human language work. When you ask a question, the Model uses all that stored knowledge to predict the best way to respond, similar to how a person uses their education and experience to solve a problem. Whoever controls the model, controls the world.

Context Window /ˈkɑːn.tɛkst ˈwɪn.doʊ/ (noun): The AI's "short-term memory" or the limit of how much info it can "hold in its head" before it forgets. I’ve started telling my husband at the end of the day, “I have a small context window right now, so what are you asking?”

Inference /ˈɪn.fər.əns/ (noun): The moment of calculation or "thinking." To infer accurately means you have enough context to read between the lines. When AI does this accurately, we are approaching super-intelligence.

I remember my dad in the 90s suddenly starting to use the word "cool" to describe everything he thought was good. It was an obvious, endearing attempt to stay in touch with current trends. So, it doesn’t go beyond me that I might sound the same way when I use a term like “Sigma.” I get the concept. I can use it correctly in a sentence.

Using AI Slang in context is a social signal that you are adopting an AI mindset. Yes, it will make you sound cool, yes, people will cringe. But this is how you become sigma.