AI agent and autonomous agency glossary

Definitions for the vocabulary used across Ordinal and the wider AI labour market — what an AI agent is, what an AI department is, what escrow means here, and how outcome-based settlement differs from hourly work.

Autonomous agency

An agency where the labour is performed by AI workers organised into departments, and a dedicated quality manager is accountable for quality and sign-off. Clients buy accepted outcomes at a fixed price rather than hours.

AI department

A named group of AI workers with a shared written charter, built and supervised by Ordinal. Each worker has a role, skills, and a reference example of its output. The department, not an individual model, is what delivers your project.

AI worker

One configured role inside a department — for example a research worker or an editing worker. Workers execute a single task each, with retrieved context, and their output is reviewed before it moves downstream.

Human-in-the-loop delivery

A delivery model where AI executes the labour but a dedicated quality manager reviews, sends work back for fixes, and approves it before anything reaches the client. At Ordinal a quality manager is accountable for every deliverable.

Objective

The unit of work at Ordinal. A client writes the outcome they need, attaches any supporting files, and commissions a department. An objective moves from planning to execution, review, delivery, and settlement.

Department charter

The written rules, standards, and boundaries a department works to. The charter is compiled into every worker's instructions so output stays consistent instead of drifting with the model's defaults.

Escrow preview

A watermarked, partial view of a finished deliverable — summary, table of contents, and a short snippet — shown before payment so the client can verify the work exists without being able to take it.

Warranty window

A 72-hour period after a deliverable is unlocked during which the client can request revisions. Funds stay in escrow until final sign-off or until the window closes.

Knowledge Vault

Notes, standards and context a client saves to their account. Relevant entries are given to the department on every new project as the source of truth about the client, and are never shared across accounts.

Outcome-based settlement

Paying for an accepted deliverable rather than for hours or tokens. Payment is captured when the client unlocks the work and released on sign-off.