--- title: "AI agent glossary in plain English | Am I Ready for Agents?" description: "38 terms about AI agents, bots and agent readiness in plain English, each with a dated, sourced example and a page of its own. Alphabetical." canonical: https://amireadyforagents.com/university/glossary site: "Am I Ready for Agents?" last_updated: 2026-11-05 section: "Glossary" --- # AI agent glossary in plain English | Am I Ready for Agents? > 38 terms about AI agents, bots and agent readiness in plain English, each with a dated, sourced example and a page of its own. Alphabetical. Source: https://amireadyforagents.com/university/glossary Site: Am I Ready for Agents? Last reviewed: 2026-11-05 # AI agent glossary: terms in plain English ## In short 38 terms that come up when AI agents, bots and agent readiness are discussed, each defined in one or two sentences with a dated, sourced example. Each term has its own page that says where it matters for a leader and links to related terms. Use it before a meeting with your web team. ## The terms, A to Z ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol) An open standard from OpenAI and Stripe for agents to check out with merchants; the basis of ChatGPT's commerce features. [More on ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol)](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/acp-agentic-commerce-protocol). AEO (answer engine optimization) Tracking and improving how a brand appears in AI answers. It measures mentions and citations, not whether an agent can finish a task on your site. [More on AEO (answer engine optimization)](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/aeo-answer-engine-optimization). Agent experience (AX) How an AI agent experiences your business once it arrives: whether it can find, read, act on, pay and trust your site. The business counterpart of user experience. [More on Agent experience (AX)](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/agent-experience-ax). Agent journey A recorded run in which an agent is given a real task on a site, with every step, stall and outcome logged. [More on Agent journey](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/agent-journey). Agent readiness How well a site supports AI agents across finding, reading, acting and paying. Scanners turn it into a score; the self-check turns it into decisions. [More on Agent readiness](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/agent-readiness). Agent signup An agent creating an account and getting credentials for a person, with that person's approval. [More on Agent signup](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/agent-signup). Agentic checkout A purchase completed inside an AI assistant or by an agent, with the merchant still selling the item. [More on Agentic checkout](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/agentic-checkout). AgentReady An open, MIT-licensed list of what a product should implement so agents can find, read and act, maintained by Ora with partners. It names practices and scores no one. [More on AgentReady](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/agentready). AI agent Software that carries out a task on the web for one person, right now: it reads pages, fills forms, compares options and sometimes pays. Different from a crawler, which collects pages in bulk. [More on AI agent](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/ai-agent). AI crawler A bot that collects pages in bulk on its own schedule, to train a model or build an AI search index. Blocking it changes what an AI system knows about you later, not a customer's request now. [More on AI crawler](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/ai-crawler). AI search crawler A crawler that indexes pages so an AI search product can answer questions and cite them later. [More on AI search crawler](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/ai-search-crawler). API A documented way for software to ask your systems for data or to do something, without using the web pages. [More on API](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/api). Bot management Tools at your CDN, host or firewall that identify automated visitors and allow, challenge or block them. It is where a robots.txt decision is actually enforced. [More on Bot management](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/bot-management). Buy for Me Amazon's feature that completes a purchase of an eligible product on another retailer's site for the customer. [More on Buy for Me](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/buy-for-me). Connector A link between a personal agent and a service, so the agent can use that service directly with the user's permission. [More on Connector](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/connector). Content Signals A line in robots.txt that states how your content may be used, for example for search, AI input or training. [More on Content Signals](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/content-signals). Grounded answer An agent's answer built from the business's own pages rather than from search results or other sites. [More on Grounded answer](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/grounded-answer). HTTP status code The three-digit code a server returns with every page, such as 200 for found and 403 for forbidden. Agents trust these codes. [More on HTTP status code](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/http-status-code). Initial HTML The page as your server first sends it, before any scripts run. Many agents read only this version. [More on Initial HTML](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/initial-html). JavaScript rendering Building page content in the visitor's browser with scripts after the page loads. Readers that do not run scripts see an empty or partial page. [More on JavaScript rendering](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/javascript-rendering). llms.txt A proposed plain-text file that points AI tools to a site's most useful pages, written for language models. [More on llms.txt](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/llms-txt). Markdown negotiation A site returning a plain markdown version of a page when an agent asks for one with the header Accept: text/markdown. [More on Markdown negotiation](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/markdown-negotiation). MCP (Model Context Protocol) An open standard for offering an AI agent a set of named actions it can call, such as search providers or book an appointment. [More on MCP (Model Context Protocol)](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/mcp-model-context-protocol). Merchant of record The business legally selling the item, responsible for payment, refunds and customer service. In most agent checkouts it stays the merchant. [More on Merchant of record](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/merchant-of-record). Mixed-use crawler One crawler that does both search indexing and AI training, so refusing one used to mean refusing the other. [More on Mixed-use crawler](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/mixed-use-crawler). OpenAPI A standard file format that describes an API so software, including agents, can read what it does. [More on OpenAPI](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/openapi). Pay per crawl Charging AI crawlers a fee for each page they fetch, collected through your CDN. [More on Pay per crawl](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/pay-per-crawl). robots.txt A public text file at the root of a site that tells automated visitors which parts they may visit. It is a request, not a lock. [More on robots.txt](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/robots-txt). Scanner A tool that checks a site against agent readiness practices and returns a score and failing checks. It checks files and settings, not your business decisions. [More on Scanner](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/scanner). Sitemap A file that lists the pages you want automated visitors to find. Useful, though agents mostly arrive by following links. [More on Sitemap](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/sitemap). Structured data (JSON-LD) Facts such as price, availability and opening hours written in a machine-readable format inside the page, usually Schema.org in JSON-LD. [More on Structured data (JSON-LD)](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/structured-data-json-ld). Training crawler A crawler that takes pages to train or fine-tune an AI model. Most providers let you refuse it separately from search. [More on Training crawler](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/training-crawler). UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol) Google's open standard, built with retailers and Shopify, that lets AI surfaces such as AI Mode and Gemini check out with a merchant. [More on UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol)](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/ucp-universal-commerce-protocol). User agent The name a browser or bot gives itself with each request. Robots.txt rules and bot settings use these names, such as GPTBot or ChatGPT-User. [More on User agent](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/user-agent). Verified bot A bot whose operator has proven its identity to your CDN or bot vendor, through signatures, published IP ranges or a directory. [More on Verified bot](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/verified-bot). Web Bot Auth A proposed standard in which an agent signs its requests so a site can check who operates it, rather than trusting the name it claims. [More on Web Bot Auth](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/web-bot-auth). WebMCP A proposal that lets a web page tell an agent in the browser which actions it offers, as named tools, instead of the agent guessing at buttons. [More on WebMCP](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/webmcp). x402 A way for a site to ask for payment inside the web request itself, so an agent can pay a small amount and retry without an account. [More on x402](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/x402). ## Sources 1. [Meta: Introducing Muse (8 Sep 2026)](https://about.fb.com/news/2026/09/introducing-muse-personal-ai-agent/) (about.fb.com/news/2026/09/introducing-muse-personal-ai-agent), read 4 Nov 2026. 2. [Cloudflare: The Internet has a second audience (30 Sep 2026)](https://blog.cloudflare.com/agentic-web/) (blog.cloudflare.com/agentic-web), read 4 Nov 2026. 3. [Ora research: AX is the new AEO (8 Oct 2026)](https://ora.ai/blog/ax-is-the-new-aeo?utm_source=amireadyforagents.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=glossary-index) (ora.ai/blog/ax-is-the-new-aeo), read 4 Nov 2026. 4. [Scrunch pricing](https://scrunch.com/pricing) (scrunch.com/pricing), read 4 Nov 2026. 5. [Ora home page](https://ora.ai/?utm_source=amireadyforagents.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=glossary-index) (ora.ai), read 5 Nov 2026. 6. [RFC 9309 Robots Exclusion Protocol](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9309) (rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9309), read 4 Nov 2026. 7. [Scorecard methodology: the crawl of 4 Nov 2026](https://amireadyforagents.com/scorecards/methodology) (amireadyforagents.com/scorecards/methodology), read 4 Nov 2026. 8. [Cloudflare: Disallow AI Training, Accountable crawlers (15 Sep 2026)](https://blog.cloudflare.com/accountable-mixed-use-ai-crawlers/) (blog.cloudflare.com/accountable-mixed-use-ai-crawlers), read 4 Nov 2026. 9. [Cloudflare changelog: New options to manage AI traffic (1 Jul 2026)](https://developers.cloudflare.com/changelog/post/2026-07-01-ai-traffic-options/) (developers.cloudflare.com/changelog/post/2026-07-01-ai-traffic-options), read 4 Nov 2026. 10. [Cloudflare: Introducing the Agent Readiness score (17 Apr 2026)](https://blog.cloudflare.com/agent-readiness/) (blog.cloudflare.com/agent-readiness), read 4 Nov 2026. 11. [Cloudflare AI Crawl Control docs](https://developers.cloudflare.com/ai-crawl-control/) (developers.cloudflare.com/ai-crawl-control), read 4 Nov 2026. 12. [AgentReady.org guide](https://agentready.org/?utm_source=amireadyforagents.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=glossary-index) (agentready.org), read 4 Nov 2026. 13. [Zocdoc for Agents (markdown)](https://www.zocdoc.com/business/welcome-agents.md) (zocdoc.com/business/welcome-agents.md), read 4 Nov 2026. 14. [Cloudflare: the agentic internet, WebMCP example (6 Aug 2026)](https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-agentic-internet/) (blog.cloudflare.com/the-agentic-internet), read 4 Nov 2026. 15. [Meta: Muse for Small Business (29 Sep 2026)](https://about.fb.com/news/2026/09/introducing-muse-small-business/) (about.fb.com/news/2026/09/introducing-muse-small-business), read 4 Nov 2026. 16. [Google: holiday shopping updates (16 Sep 2026)](https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/shopping/google-shopping-updates-holiday-shopping/) (blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/shopping/google-shopping-updates-holiday-shopping), read 4 Nov 2026. 17. [OpenAI commerce docs: key concepts](https://developers.openai.com/commerce/guides/key-concepts) (developers.openai.com/commerce/guides/key-concepts), read 4 Nov 2026. 18. [Ora llms.txt](https://ora.ai/llms.txt?utm_source=amireadyforagents.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=glossary-index) (ora.ai/llms.txt), read 4 Nov 2026. 19. [Amazon: Meet Alexa for Shopping](https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/alexa-for-shopping-ai-assistant) (aboutamazon.com/news/retail/alexa-for-shopping-ai-assistant), read 4 Nov 2026. 20. [Introducing AgentReady.org (19 Oct 2026)](https://ora.ai/blog/agentready-launch?utm_source=amireadyforagents.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=glossary-index) (ora.ai/blog/agentready-launch), read 4 Nov 2026. 21. [Cloudflare: Agents can now create Cloudflare accounts (30 Apr 2026)](https://blog.cloudflare.com/agents-stripe-projects/) (blog.cloudflare.com/agents-stripe-projects), read 4 Nov 2026. 22. [Sector scorecards dataset, edition 4 Nov 2026](https://amireadyforagents.com/scorecards) (amireadyforagents.com/scorecards), read 4 Nov 2026. Last reviewed 5 November 2026