Glossary. The words around AI agents, in plain English.
Short definitions you can quote, from AI agent to Emiratisation, with links to where each one matters.
Accredited service provider (ASP)
A company accredited to exchange e-invoices with the UAE tax authority on a business's behalf. Every business in scope must appoint one.
Where it mattersAgentic AI
AI that acts, not only answers: it plans steps, uses tools and carries work forward toward a goal, usually with human approval for the decisions that matter.
Agentic workflow
A process carried out by an AI agent across several steps and systems, with approvals where needed.
Where it mattersAI agent
Software that understands requests in ordinary language, decides what to do, uses tools and systems to do it, and finishes a task — such as answering a customer, booking an appointment or updating a CRM — with limits on what it may decide alone.
Where it mattersAI employee
A popular name for an AI agent hired for a defined job, such as a receptionist or a recruiter. DVNC calls them AI agents and hires them out by role.
Where it mattersChatbot
A program that answers messages from a script of menus, buttons and keywords. Unlike an AI agent, it cannot understand free questions well or act in your systems.
Where it mattersDashboard
The front of the full backend DVNC builds in a client's own accounts with every agent, where the client sees every conversation, approves decisions, manages users and tracks results.
Where it mattersDo Not Call Register (DNCR)
The UAE register, run by the TDRA, of numbers that must not receive marketing calls.
Where it mattersE-invoicing (UAE)
The UAE's mandatory electronic invoicing for B2B and B2G transactions through accredited service providers: large businesses go live on 1 January 2027, the rest on 1 July 2027.
Where it mattersEmiratisation
The UAE policy requiring private companies with 50 or more employees to raise the share of UAE nationals in skilled jobs by 2% a year, with a monthly contribution for each unfilled position.
Where it mattersEnd-of-service gratuity
The payment a UAE private-sector employee receives after at least a year of service: 21 days of basic pay for each of the first five years and 30 days for each year after, capped at two years' pay.
Where it mattersGuardrails
The hard rules an AI agent cannot break: what it may say, what it may decide, when it must hand over and which words it must never use.
Where it mattersHallucination
When an AI states something that is not true. Agents reduce it by answering only from approved knowledge and saying 'I don't know' otherwise.
Handover
The moment an AI agent passes a conversation to a person, with a summary, because the customer asked, the topic needs judgement, or a rule says so.
Human in the loop
A setup in which a person approves an AI agent's decisions before they take effect — for example refunds, discounts or exceptions.
Knowledge base
The approved information an AI agent answers from: prices, hours, policies, services and answers to common questions.
Large language model (LLM)
The kind of AI model that understands and writes language. AI agents use one or more LLMs to understand requests and to decide what to do.
Multi-agent system
Several AI agents, each with its own job, sharing one memory and handing work to each other.
Where it mattersNo-show rate
The share of booked appointments where the customer did not come. Confirmations and reminders lower it.
Where it mattersPDPL
The UAE's federal Personal Data Protection Law (Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021), which governs how businesses process personal data on the mainland. Health, banking and government data have their own rules.
Where it mattersRetrieval-augmented generation (RAG)
A method in which an AI looks up relevant documents first and answers from them, so it can cite its source instead of guessing.
Where it mattersShadow mode
A trial period in which an AI agent drafts every reply and a person approves it before it is sent. DVNC runs every new agent in shadow mode for three days.
Where it mattersSpeed to lead
The time between a lead's enquiry and the first reply. The first business to answer usually wins the customer.
Where it mattersTemplate message
A WhatsApp message a business starts outside a 24-hour customer conversation. It must be approved by Meta in advance and is charged per message by category.
Where it mattersUAE health data law
Federal Law No. 2 of 2019 on technology in health fields, which generally keeps health data inside the UAE, with exceptions listed in Ministerial Resolution 51 of 2021.
Where it mattersUAE telemarketing rules
Cabinet Resolutions 56 and 57 of 2024: marketing calls only from 9am to 6pm, from licensed local numbers, to consenting people not on the DNCR, with the caller identified and records kept. Fines run from AED 10,000 to AED 150,000.
Where it mattersUpdate in plain words
A DVNC add-on that lets a business change its agent by telling it what changed — prices, hours, policies, answers — in plain Arabic or English, without code changes.
Where it mattersVoice agent
An AI agent that speaks on the phone: it listens, understands, answers and acts during a live call.
Where it mattersWhatsApp Business API
The business version of WhatsApp that software can connect to. AI agents use it to answer customers; Meta charges per template message a business starts.
Where it matters
What changes for UAE businesses, and what to do.
The DVNC blog for UAE business owners: AI agents, deadlines and regulation, tools and prices, and playbooks by industry — what changes and what to do.