AI Corner

What is an AI assistant?

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot: everyone talks about them, and the words around them get mixed up. This page puts the terms in order, from the big field of AI down to the app on your screen, and shows what an assistant really is, so you know what to expect from it.

From the outside in

Each ring is a smaller, more specific idea inside the one around it. A light runs from the outside in, again and again; point at the picture or press Pause to stop it.

Artificial intelligenceAI

The whole field: getting machines to do things that normally need human intelligence, such as seeing, reading, deciding and writing.

that learns from data

Machine learningML

AI that learns patterns from examples instead of following rules written by hand. Give it enough data and it works out the rules itself.

with neural networks of many layers

Deep learningDL

Machine learning with neural networks of many layers: simple units, loosely inspired by the brain, stacked on top of each other. "Deep" just means many layers.

one breakthrough design

Transformers2017

A design that lets a network read a whole text at once and weigh which words matter for each other. The engine under almost every modern language model.

trained on huge amounts of text

Large language modelsLLMs

Transformers trained on enormous amounts of text until they can understand and write language, answer questions and follow instructions. Most of them can now read pictures too.

wrapped into an app you can use

AI assistantsapps

The products you actually use. Each one is built on a large language model, and not all of them are "GPT".

What an assistant adds to the model

The modelThe language model that writes the answers, word by word.

InstructionsRules from the maker, plus yours: tone, language, what to avoid.

ToolsSearch the web, read your files, run code, make documents.

Your conversationEverything said so far: the context window. What doesn't fit in it, the assistant doesn't see.

Some assistants (October 2026)

ChatGPTOpenAI

ClaudeAnthropic

GeminiGoogle

GrokxAI

CopilotMicrosoft

Meta AIMeta · Llama

DeepSeekDeepSeek

Le ChatMistral AI

PerplexityPerplexity

… and new ones appear all the time. Copilot and Perplexity mostly use other makers' models.

Where does "generative AI" fit?

It isn't one of the rings. It is a capability: any model that creates new content. It cuts across the rings instead of sitting inside one of them.

TextLanguage models that write and chat: the part most people mean by "AI".

Pictures, sound and videoOther models (for example diffusion models) that make pictures, music and film: generative, but not language models.

Three things to understand before you start

It predicts, it doesn't know

An assistant writes the most likely next words. That is why it sounds sure of itself, even when it is wrong. Check names, figures and sources before you use them.

It only sees its window

It remembers only what is in the conversation. In a very long session the oldest part is summarised and details get lost. Start a new conversation for a new task.

Long sessions: how to avoid it →

"GPT" is a recipe and a brand

GPT means Generative Pre-trained Transformer. ChatGPT runs on OpenAI's GPT models; Claude, Gemini, Grok and the others use their own models.

Where to go next

New to AI? The free guides start at zero and end with your first real task. Working with Claude for days on one project? Read Long sessions.

Models and names change fast; the shape of the picture stays the same. As of October 2026.