Understanding Key AI Engineering Terms: Authentication, Authorization, and More

AI engineering has many terms that sound similar...

but in interviews and real production systems, they mean very different things.

Here’s the simplest version worth saving:

AUTHENTICATION
asks: “Who are you?”

AUTHORIZATION
asks: “What are you allowed to access?”

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LATENCY
is about speed: “How long does one request take?”

THROUGHPUT
is about scale: “How many requests can the system handle?”

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RATE LIMITING
sets the boundary: “How many requests are allowed?”

THROTTLING
protects the system: “Should we slow requests down?”

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TOOL
is one capability an AI app can call.

MCP
is the protocol that connects AI apps to tools and data.

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SEMANTIC SEARCH
finds results based on meaning.

HYBRID SEARCH
combines meaning + keyword search.

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WORKFLOW
follows predefined steps.

AGENT
decides the next step dynamically.

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MEMORY
is what the AI keeps over time.

CONTEXT ENGINEERING
is what we design the AI to see right now.

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LOAD BALANCER
distributes traffic across servers.

API GATEWAY
manages how clients access APIs.

Small differences.
Big impact in production AI.

Check out the video for better understanding.
Save this for your AI engineering interviews.

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