AI Vocabulary · 04 Building with AI
What is Embedded AI?
AI built as a feature into software you already use, such as a writing assistant in your word processor or email.
Many people meet AI first inside familiar tools: a summary button in the email client, a design suggestion in Canva, a writing helper in Notion or Grammarly. The software vendor rents or builds a model and places it where the work already happens.
Embedded AI is easy to adopt and hard to count. Investor estimates of the AI application market, such as Menlo Ventures', leave these features out, so they understate total use. In a randomised study at 66 large firms, knowledge workers with an AI assistant built into their email and office apps spent about 1.4 hours less per week on email, with no detectable change in the amount or mix of their tasks.
Why it matters for you
For most teams embedded AI is the cheapest start, because it needs no new tool and often comes with a licence you already pay. It also brings your existing vendor's data terms into play, so read them.
Own it
List the AI features already switched on in your software. Decide which ones you want to use, train your team on them, and measure the time saved on one real task before you buy anything new.
Where it comes from
The term has no official definition in the sources we checked. The field experiment is Shifting Work Patterns with Generative AI by Dillon, Jaffe, Immorlica and Stanton (2025), whose co-authors include Microsoft researchers.
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