AI Vocabulary · 03 Working with AI
What is Context?
The information the model can actually see right now. Better context beats clever wording.
Context is everything the model has in front of it when it answers: the instructions, the conversation so far, any documents, search results or tool outputs. The model knows nothing about your company, your customers or yesterday's meeting unless it is in the context.
More context is not automatically better. Irrelevant or outdated material distracts the model, and very long conversations make it lose track of what matters. Good context is relevant, current and focused on the task. Its size limit is the context window.
Why it matters for you
When AI gets something wrong about your business, ask first: did it have the right information? Missing context is the most common cause of bad answers and hallucinations.
Own it
Your context, meaning your documents, decisions, examples and knowledge, is what makes AI useful for you specifically. Keep it organised and portable, so it works with any model.
Where it comes from
The word comes from the Latin contextus, "a joining together", from contexere, "to weave together" (Etymonline). That image fits AI well: an answer is only as good as the threads of information woven into it. In AI usage the word has no single coiner; it spread with chat assistants and later with context engineering.
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