When you bring an AI like Oria, by Agent Oria, into your office, you come across new words.
Here is what they mean, in plain words.
You will see them in a guide, in a law or in a supplier’s proposal.
Oria is Quebec’s private AI, locked in your office.
Chatbot
A chatbot, also called a conversational agent, is software you talk with in everyday language. You write or speak to it, and it answers. That is how you work with Oria.
The Office québécois de la langue française prefers the term agent conversationnel in its French dictionary. It advises against using the English word chatbot in French. It also gives the terms agent de dialogue and dialogueur, and the English equivalent conversational agent. Here is the same word in other languages.
CLOUD Act
The CLOUD Act is a United States law passed in March 2018. It added section 2713 to title 18 of the United States Code.
That section applies to providers of electronic communication services and remote computing services. These providers must preserve, back up or disclose data when United States law requires it. This covers the communications and records of their customers or subscribers. It applies as soon as the provider has them in its possession, custody or control. It does not matter whether the data is in the United States or elsewhere.
See where your data lives, and who can read it
Here is the same name in other languages.
Cloud computing
Cloud computing means a provider stores and processes your data on its servers, rather than on your own devices. You reach those servers over the internet. People also call it “the cloud”.
The Office québécois de la langue française gives the French terms infonuagique, informatique en nuage and nuagique in its French dictionary. Here is the same word in other languages.
Generative AI (GenAI)
Generative AI creates new content based on what you ask for. It can be text, an image, a sound or a video. Chatbots that write are a kind of generative AI.
See what the Barreau du Québec says about generative AI
The Barreau du Québec uses the French abbreviation IAG in its guide. The Office québécois de la langue française gives the French terms intelligence artificielle générative, IAG and IA générative in its French dictionary. It gives generative artificial intelligence, GenAI, GAI and generative AI as the English equivalents. Here is the same word in other languages.
Large language model (LLM)
A large language model is the engine behind chatbots that write. It is a very large program, trained on huge amounts of text. It can write what comes next in a text. That is how it can answer or write. Oria’s AI model runs on the machine, in your office.
The Barreau du Québec uses the French abbreviation GML in its guide. The Office québécois de la langue française gives, among others, the French terms grand modèle de langage and GML in its French dictionary. It also accepts the English abbreviation LLM. It gives large language model and LLM as the English equivalents. Here is the same word in other languages.
Law 25
This is the common name of a Quebec act passed in 2021, chapter 25 of that year’s statutes. It amended the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector.
Since then, the amended Act has required every business, among other things, to:
- have someone responsible for protecting personal information (s. 3.1)
- adopt policies and practices to govern how it manages that information (s. 3.2)
- carry out a privacy impact assessment for certain projects (s. 3.3)
- tell a person what their information will be used for when the business collects it (s. 8)
See what Law 25 requires, section by section
Here is the same name in other languages.
Local AI
A local AI runs on a computer that belongs to the organization using it, not on an online provider’s servers. It can work on what you give it without sending anything out. Oria is a local AI.
See how a local AI works without the internet
Offline
Being offline means having no internet connection.
One click on the big button at the top of Oria’s screen stops anything from going out to the internet. Oria’s AI keeps answering, since it runs on the machine.
You start Oria at your office and connect it to your computers. Then you lock its master switch with your password. From then on, your machine is a vault, cut off from the internet and from all outside access. The connection stays in the office, between Oria and your computers.
See why Oria stays an offline vault
See the words “online” and “offline” in other languages.
Privacy impact assessment
A privacy impact assessment is a review of the effects a project may have on people’s privacy. In Quebec, the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector requires a business to carry one out for certain projects. For example, a project to acquire, develop or overhaul an information system or an online service requires an assessment (s. 3.3). The requirement applies as soon as the system handles personal information at any step, from collection to destruction.
The Act also requires one before communicating personal information outside Quebec (s. 17).
See what Law 25 requires when your office uses AI
In Quebec French, it is called EFVP, évaluation des facteurs relatifs à la vie privée. Here is the same word in other languages.
Professional secrecy
A professional must keep secret any confidential information they learn while practising their profession. Every person also has the right to have that secret kept. In Quebec, the Charter of human rights and freedoms guarantees that right (s. 9). The Professional Code imposes that duty on every professional (s. 60.4).
See what the law and the Barreau say about professional secrecy
Here is the same word in other languages.
RAG (retrieval-augmented generation)
With RAG, the AI first searches a collection of chosen documents for useful passages. It then uses those passages to write its answer. It does not rely only on what it learned during training.
The Office québécois de la langue française gives the French terms génération augmentée par récupération, GAR and RAG in its French dictionary. It gives retrieval-augmented generation and RAG as the English equivalents. Here is the same word in other languages.
Superintelligence
Since the US executive order of September 29, 2026, the US administration says “Super Intelligence” instead of “artificial intelligence”, for the same technologies. Meta calls “personal superintelligence” an AI at the service of each person. Oria, by Agent Oria, is that AI for your office, and it stays locked inside.