Glossary
Plain-language definitions for AI agents, MCP, iPaaS, orchestration, and governance.
A
- Agent Gateway
Tray.ai's governance layer for MCP — deploy managed MCP Servers, expose connectors as governed agent tools, and audit every agent action.
- Agentic AI
AI systems that don't just generate responses but take actions — planning, using tools, calling APIs, and completing multi-step tasks autonomously toward a goal.
- AI agent
An AI system that can reason about a task, use tools to act on it, and learn from feedback — not just generate text.
- AI-native
Built with AI as a core architectural concern from day one — not bolted on as a feature after the fact.
- API management
The tools and processes for publishing, securing, monitoring, and versioning APIs — so teams can expose data and services without building custom infrastructure for every integration.
C
- Change data capture
A data integration technique that tracks and streams changes in a database in real time — inserts, updates, and deletes — rather than re-pulling the full dataset on a schedule.
- Composable
An architecture where independent, reusable pieces combine freely — so new capability comes from recombination, not rebuilding.
- Connector
A pre-built integration between Tray.ai and a specific application — Salesforce, Slack, Snowflake, 700+ others.
E
- Enterprise automation
Using software to execute business processes automatically — at the scale, reliability, and governance that enterprise operations require.
- ETL
Extract, Transform, Load — the process of pulling data from source systems, reshaping it, and loading it into a destination like a data warehouse.
H
- Human-in-the-loop
A design pattern where a human approval, review, or decision is embedded as a step in an otherwise automated process — keeping people accountable for the decisions that matter.
- Hyperautomation
A Gartner-coined term for the disciplined, enterprise-wide application of automation — combining AI, integration, and process tools to automate everything that can be automated.
I
- Intelligent document processing
AI-powered extraction of structured data from unstructured documents — invoices, contracts, forms, receipts — so the data can flow directly into downstream systems without manual entry.
- iPaaS
Integration Platform as a Service — a cloud-hosted platform for building, running, and managing integrations between applications.
M
W
- Workflow
A sequence of steps that runs when a trigger fires — the unit of automation that moves data, calls systems, and orchestrates outcomes.
- Workflow automation
Software that executes a defined sequence of steps automatically — moving data, triggering actions, and routing decisions without manual intervention.
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