Glossary of Key Terms

Accessibility

The measurable ability of an environment, interface, or service to be perceived, understood, navigated, and used by people with a wide range of physical, sensory, cognitive, and situational constraints. Accessibility includes both digital and physical layers: content, interfaces, wayfinding, acoustics, visibility, mobility, and assistive compatibility.

Acoustic Layer

The set of acoustic conditions and controllable behaviors that determine how sound is experienced in a space, including intelligibility, noise floor, reverberation characteristics, spatial zoning, directional sound, and the interaction between adjacent zones. The acoustic layer directly affects comprehension, comfort, inclusion, and perceived quality.

Acoustic State

A snapshot of the current sound environment in a space, for example measured or inferred values such as ambient noise level, program level, intelligibility conditions, or crowd-generated sound. Acoustic state is part of operational reality and can influence decisions about routing, content delivery modes, and power-saving behaviors.

Age-Appropriate Experience

The practice of tailoring content, language, pacing, interaction patterns, and responsibility expectations to the visitor's developmental stage and typical capabilities for their age group. Age-appropriate experience ensures that children are not exposed to adult framing or complexity they cannot process, and that adults are not treated as if they require simplified explanations.

Age Dignity

The condition where a person is treated with respect that fits their age and role, without infantilization, stereotyping, or inappropriate expectations. Age dignity is maintained when the experience neither talks down to adults nor burdens children with adult-level complexity.

Agent Coordination Layer (Web5)

Shorthand for an identity and data layer using DIDs, verifiable credentials, and decentralized web nodes, as publicly described in industry usage.

AI-to-AI Negotiation Layer (Web6)

Author-defined forward label for multi-agent, cross-system coordination requiring enforceable governance and verification.

Anonymous Recognition

Recognition that preserves privacy by avoiding identification. The system can recognize a context, returning session, or match a pattern useful for experience continuity or analytics, without learning a person's real-world identity. Anonymous recognition must still be treated as sensitive because linkability can exist.

Audience Appropriateness

The principle that content and interaction depth should match the visitor's context, including age, literacy, cognitive development, cultural expectations, time available, and domain expertise. Audience appropriateness is a dignity requirement: people should not be forced into experiences that misjudge who they are.

Board Oversight (ESG)

Formal accountability of the board or a delegated governance body for ESG strategy, risk appetite, performance indicators, and incident response. For personalization systems, board oversight covers privacy boundaries, consent integrity, accessibility commitments, language equity targets, vendor compliance, and safety-related governance.

Body of Knowledge (BoK)

The authoritative, structured collection of verified information, interpretive frameworks, and contextual data that informs all AI-generated content within a deployment. The Body of Knowledge serves as the source material from which the system draws when responding to visitor inquiries, generating narratives, or constructing personalized experiences.

CGL™ (Cognitive Governance Layer)

A governance layer that evaluates proposed actions against explicit objectives and hard constraints, ensuring that systems behave safely, inclusively, and in alignment with venue policy. It is the layer that makes powerful automation trustworthy in public space. CGL™ is a runtime decision mechanism with enforceable constraint evaluation and auditable outcomes.

Channel-less Experience

An experience goal where the visitor does not feel channel boundaries at all; the system behaves as one continuous service across touchpoints. This is frequently discussed as a phygital outcome.

Confabulation

Confidently stated but erroneous or false output produced by generative AI systems, especially when the system lacks sufficient grounding in approved sources or state. Confabulation is treated as a system-level risk managed through delivery modes, constraints, evidence requirements, verification, and safe failure behavior.

Consent

A visitor's explicit, informed permission for specific data use and experience behavior, granted for a defined purpose, scope, and duration, and revocable at any time. Consent is not a one-time checkbox but an ongoing operational condition that gates what the system may infer, remember, personalize, or share.

Consented Context Layer (Web4)

Author-defined label for consent-driven, device-mediated context negotiation in physical venues.

Consent Integrity

The property that consent is captured, enforced, and honored correctly in runtime behavior. Consent integrity requires that consent has clear scope, can be proven, can be withdrawn, is respected across all subsystems, and cannot be silently expanded by convenience or vendor defaults.

Consent Receipt

A visitor-visible record of what was consented to, including purpose, scope, retention expectations, and how to revoke. Consent receipts support dignity and trust by making consent legible, and they support governance by making consent auditable.

Constitution

The foundational rule set governing system behavior, output boundaries, and ethical constraints. The Constitution defines what the AI may and may not say, do, or generate—functioning as the normative layer that shapes all downstream decisions made by the CGL and other governance components.

Constrained Generation

The process by which AI-produced content is bounded by predefined rules, approved source material, and governance parameters. Constrained generation ensures outputs remain factually grounded, institutionally appropriate, and aligned with the Constitution.

Curated Delivery

A content distribution model in which human experts pre-select, sequence, and contextualize material before it reaches the visitor. Curated delivery prioritizes institutional voice and narrative coherence over real-time personalization.

Data Minimization

The discipline of collecting, generating, and retaining the least data and the weakest identifiers needed to deliver the intended outcome. Minimization applies to raw inputs, derived attributes, logs, embeddings, and linkable tokens, not just obvious personal data.

Decision Record

A minimal, auditable record of a consequential decision, including the operational state used, the applicable constraints or rules checked, the chosen delivery mode, the outcome (approve, modify, or reject), and any operator override. Decision records support accountability without turning logs into personal dossiers.

DID (Decentralized Identifier)

A standards-based identifier designed to be controlled by the subject rather than issued as a permanent identity by a single centralized authority. DIDs support modern credential and permission models that allow a person to prove something without disclosing unnecessary personal data.

Digital Twin

A dynamic virtual replica of a physical asset, system, or environment that maintains synchronization with its real-world counterpart through sensor data, operational telemetry, or periodic updates. In the WorldModel framework, digital twin functionality is distributed across multiple components rather than residing in a single mirrored replica.

Dignity

The condition where a person can engage without humiliation, dependency, avoidable confusion, or loss of agency. Dignity is tightly coupled to comprehension and autonomy. If the system fails someone's language or accessibility needs, the person is forced into reliance on companions, staff, or guesswork, which is a dignity failure.

Diversity

The presence of different identities, backgrounds, languages, abilities, and perspectives among visitors, staff, and stakeholders. Diversity is a baseline reality of modern venues, and systems must be designed to operate correctly across that real-world variety.

Drift (Equipment)

The gradual deviation of calibrated equipment—such as sensors, displays, or projection systems—from specified operational parameters. Drift degrades experience quality and triggers maintenance workflows within the Lifecycle Automation Layer.

EDE™ (Environmental Dynamics Engine)

A layer that models the evolving dynamics of a venue, such as flow, congestion, audio levels, temperature and solar ingress, and state changes, so the system can anticipate and respond rather than react late.

Embodied Docent Interface

A physical or robotic instantiation of the Virtual Docent Layer, capable of gesture, locomotion, and spatially situated interaction. The Embodied Docent Interface extends AI-guided experiences into three-dimensional space.

Emergency Stop (E-Stop)

A physical or logically equivalent control that immediately halts a defined set of system behaviors to reduce imminent risk. An E-Stop must map to specific behaviors it stops and must force a transition to a defined Safe State. Recovery must require deliberate, authorized action, not automatic resumption.

Equity

The practice of designing for fair outcomes, not equal inputs. Equity acknowledges that different people need different supports to achieve the same level of access, safety, comprehension, and autonomy. In venue systems, equity is achieved by intentionally removing barriers that otherwise create predictable disadvantage.

ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance)

A governance framework for how organizations define, manage, measure, and report their impacts and risks across environmental, social, and ethical domains. ESG applies to how venues oversee personalization, identity, consent, privacy, accessibility, and safety as board-level responsibilities.

ESG Governance

The operational system that assigns responsibility, incentives, policies, controls, and reporting to ensure ESG commitments are executed rather than advertised. For personalized venues, ESG governance includes how decisions are made about what the system may infer, store, remember, recommend, and disclose, and how harm, bias, and privacy failures are prevented and remediated.

ESG Risk Management

Integration of ESG factors into enterprise risk management, including prevention, detection, response, and learning loops. ESG risk management covers reputational, regulatory, operational, and safety risks arising from personalization failures, privacy breaches, bias, accessibility gaps, and vendor non-compliance.

Ethical Behavior (ESG)

Policies and practices that prevent corruption, manipulation, discrimination, and misuse of personal data or influence. In personalized environments, ethical behavior includes guardrails against discriminatory targeting, coercive interface patterns, opaque profiling, and undocumented data sharing.

Executive Alignment (ESG)

The linkage between leadership objectives, performance evaluation, and measurable ESG outcomes. Executive alignment means leadership is accountable for results such as accessibility conformance, language parity, consent capture quality, privacy incident rates, and the effectiveness of remediation processes.

Expertise-Appropriate Experience

The practice of matching content depth, vocabulary, and assumptions to a visitor's professional or domain knowledge when that expertise is explicitly indicated. Expertise-appropriate experience preserves dignity by respecting stated competence, intent, and time.

Extended Reality (XR)

An umbrella term for AR and VR. XR is frequently used to deliver phygital effects, such as AR overlays that augment physical space with digital interpretation.

Governance

The practice of constraining system decisions under explicit policy, including objectives, hard constraints, auditability, and operator override. Governance is not bureaucracy. It is the mechanism that turns capability into responsibility.

Governance Gate

A decision checkpoint within the CGL at which proposed system actions or outputs are evaluated against Constitutional rules before being permitted to proceed. Governance gates enforce compliance at runtime.

Governance (Operational)

The runtime enforcement of constraints that determine what actions are permitted, prohibited, or required within a system. Operational governance differs from policy by being executable, auditable, and enforceable under live conditions, including degraded and incident states.

Graceful Degradation

A deliberate reduction in system capability that preserves safety, accessibility, and trust when full operation cannot be maintained. Graceful degradation prioritizes conservative behavior, refusal when truth is insufficient, and operator escalation over speculative automation.

Grounding

The requirement that factual outputs and consequential decisions are anchored in approved sources, current operational state, or verifiable evidence, rather than invented detail. Grounding is the primary countermeasure to confabulation in venue contexts.

Hallucination

Common industry label for confabulation. See: Confabulation.

Hybrid Commerce

A retail-focused label for seamless blending of physical and digital journeys; some sources treat "phygital" as a synonym or market-specific term for this concept.

Hybrid Delivery

A content distribution model that blends curated delivery with adaptive, AI-driven personalization. Hybrid delivery allows institutions to maintain editorial control over core narratives while enabling the system to tailor pacing, emphasis, and supplementary content to individual visitors.

ICL™ (Identity Continuity Layer)

A layer that maintains continuity of visitor preferences and interactions over time, using privacy-forward principles and opt-in identity mechanisms when appropriate.

IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility)

A delivery requirement, not a slogan. Inclusive experiences only work when every visitor can understand, navigate, and participate with dignity, regardless of language, ability, or familiarity with the venue. This includes equity of languages, meaning the venue does not treat non-dominant languages as a reduced-feature fallback.

Incident Mode

An explicit operating state in which automation, messaging, and guidance are constrained to a conservative, auditable posture in response to authoritative safety or hazard signals. Incident Mode suppresses optimization behavior, restricts public messaging to pre-approved content, and requires verified restoration before return to normal operation.

Inclusion

The property of an experience where people are not merely admitted, but can participate meaningfully without being singled out, marginalized, or forced into workarounds. Inclusion requires that core experiences, instructions, and services remain available across different needs and contexts.

Internet of Things (IoT)

Networked sensors and actuators embedded in physical environments that provide state awareness and enable responsive behaviors. IoT is a common substrate for phygital implementations because it connects physical conditions to digital logic.

Language Equity

A specific form of equity where languages are supported with parity of quality, completeness, and timeliness. Language equity means non-dominant languages are not treated as reduced-function translations, partial summaries, or out-of-date variants, especially for safety cues, consent prompts, navigation, and critical context.

Linkability

The ability to correlate a person, device, or session across time, locations, or systems, even if the person is not identified by name. Linkability is the central risk in "anonymous recognition," because it can still reconstruct a behavioral identity unless minimization, retention limits, and governance gates are enforced.

MAOL™ (Multi-Agent Orchestration Layer)

A coordination layer that allows specialized agents to propose actions in parallel, then resolves those proposals into coherent actions under governance constraints.

NDEF (NFC Data Exchange Format)

A standard message encapsulation format defined by the NFC Forum for storing and exchanging NFC application data. NDEF supports one or more records per message, enabling consistent interpretation of common payload types such as URLs.

NFC (Near Field Communication)

A standards-based, short-range wireless communication method designed for simple, quick data exchange when two devices are within a few centimeters of each other, typically using a "tap" interaction. NFC operates at 13.56 MHz.

NFC Code

Colloquial shorthand for the data payload carried by NFC, usually stored on an NFC tag or exchanged between an NFC-capable device and a reader. NFC codes are phygital bridge mechanisms because they link a physical touchpoint to a digital action.

NFC Tag

A small, usually passive NFC device embedded in a sticker, card, wristband, token, placard, or exhibit element. In venue contexts, NFC tags are used for tap-to-continue content, exhibit handoffs, staff workflows, access control patterns, and consented continuity.

Node-based Compute

A distributed processing architecture in which computational tasks are handled by localized Edge Compute Nodes rather than centralized servers. Node-based compute reduces latency and supports real-time interactions at the point of experience.

Omnichannel

A design and operations approach that coordinates multiple channels and touchpoints so the visitor's journey remains coherent across in-person, web, mobile, and staff-assisted interactions. Phygital is often discussed as a practical expression of omnichannel in physical environments.

Online-to-Offline (O2O)

A journey pattern where a digital step intentionally triggers a physical step (or the reverse), for example scanning a code in-gallery to continue content, redeem access, or personalize a path. This is a common phygital mechanic.

Operator Override

A controlled mechanism that allows authorized staff to approve, block, or modify system behavior in real time, with a decision record. Operator override is essential for public-space safety, incident response, and edge-case handling.

Personalization Ladder

A practical classification system for the scope of personalization: exhibit-scale localization, micro hyper-personalization across multiple exhibits, and macro hyper-personalization at venue scale. The ladder determines what architecture is required, and when governance becomes mandatory.

Phygital

A portmanteau of "physical" and "digital," describing experiences, environments, or retail moments where physical space and digital interaction merge seamlessly. In venue contexts, phygital refers to touchpoints where a visitor's in-person presence and their digital identity, preferences, or device interactions converge.

Portable Identity Layer (Web3)

Shorthand for portable, cryptographically verifiable identity and claims, anchored to DIDs and verifiable credentials.

Purpose Limitation

A privacy and governance principle that data, inferences, and identifiers may only be used for the explicit purposes communicated at collection time. Purpose limitation prevents function creep, where data gathered for experience continuity is later repurposed for marketing or profiling.

Prosody

The rhythm, stress, intonation, and tempo of speech: the musical layer of how something is said, distinct from the words themselves. Prosody carries emotional and contextual signal. Prosodic analysis allows systems to infer visitor state from voice interactions without requiring explicit statements.

Provisioned Compute

Dedicated processing capacity allocated to a specific venue, experience, or operational function. Provisioned compute ensures predictable performance by reserving resources in advance rather than relying on shared or on-demand infrastructure.

Proximity Interaction

A class of interactions triggered by location or nearness (beacons, UWB, Wi-Fi RTT, vision zones, geofencing), enabling content to respond to where the visitor is without requiring explicit input each time.

QR Code Interaction

A lightweight phygital bridge that links physical objects, signage, or artifacts to digital content, transactions, or continuation states. Often used because it avoids specialized hardware and is visitor-controlled.

Reporting and Transparency (ESG)

The practice of producing accurate, auditable disclosures about ESG performance, controls, and incidents. For venue personalization, this includes what data is used, why decisions are made, how consent is obtained, what is retained, and how accessibility is measured.

Retention Policy

A defined lifecycle for data and derived context, including retention duration, deletion triggers, and exception handling. Retention is treated as a control surface for risk. Short retention reduces linkability, breach impact, and misuse opportunity.

Runbook

A governed operational playbook that defines permitted actions, required verification, and escalation paths when a system enters degraded or incident conditions. Runbooks are not troubleshooting guides or vendor manuals. They are the executable interface between governance and operations, ensuring consistent, auditable behavior under stress.

Safe Failure

A defined behavior for when the system lacks sufficient grounding, consent, policy clearance, or operational certainty. Safe failure prioritizes safety, dignity, and clarity—for example by refusing, switching to curated delivery, asking for minimal additional context, or routing to a human.

Safe State

A predefined system condition that reduces risk to an acceptable minimum during an abnormal or emergency situation. A safe state is not simply "off"—it is the state in which hazardous behaviors are stopped, outputs are made predictable, and safety-critical information remains available.

Safety Override

A controlled mechanism that preempts normal automation, personalization, and agent behavior when safety-relevant conditions exist. Safety override defines precedence: safety constraints supersede experience goals.

Session Continuity

The system's ability to maintain coherent context, memory, and personalization across multiple interactions, visits, or touchpoints within a single visitor relationship. Session continuity is enabled by the ICL.

Sound Bleed

Unwanted transmission of audio from one space into another, which can reduce intelligibility, increase fatigue, and degrade perceived quality. Managing sound bleed is both an acoustic design problem and an operational problem.

Spatial AR Interface

An augmented reality presentation layer that anchors digital content to physical locations, objects, or surfaces within a venue. The Spatial AR Interface enables visitors to encounter contextual information as they move through space.

Spatial Computing

A computing model where digital content is anchored to real-world locations, objects, or surfaces, enabling persistent, location-aware digital layers in physical space. Spatial computing is a common technical pathway to phygital experiences.

Tap Interaction (NFC Tap)

An interaction pattern where the visitor brings a device within a few centimeters of a tag or reader to trigger a data exchange or action. Tap interactions are favored in phygital design because they are explicit, visitor-initiated, and lower ambiguity than passive proximity triggers.

Touchpoint

Any moment where a visitor interacts with the venue, including exhibits, kiosks, staff, signage, mobile prompts, queues, entrances, and post-visit follow-up. Phygital design is primarily about making touchpoints behave as one joined-up experience.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator)

A text string that specifies the address of a resource on the internet. In venue contexts, URLs are a primary "phygital bridge" payload carried by QR codes, NFC tags, short links, and kiosks, because they can launch content, continue a story, trigger a workflow, or hand off context to a device.

Verifiable Credential

A cryptographically signed credential that can be presented in whole or in part, depending on the policy requirements of a transaction. It supports interactions where a venue can ask for a proof and receive a minimal answer, such as "yes" or "no," rather than collecting an entire document.

Verified Restoration

The process by which the Outcome Verification Layer confirms that a corrective action—such as recalibration, replacement, or repair—has successfully returned a system component to its intended operational state.

World Model

In general usage, a computational representation of an environment, its entities, and their relationships that enables a system to reason about states, predict outcomes, and plan actions. World models are foundational to robotics, simulation, and increasingly to large-scale AI systems seeking to understand context beyond immediate inputs.

WorldModel™

The implementation of World Model architecture within the governed, agent-mediated framework. The WorldModel™ framework integrates venue-specific spatial data, object registries, operational states, and visitor context into a unified representational layer. Unlike generic world models, WorldModel architecture is purpose-built for large venues, encoding not only physical reality but also interpretive relationships, narrative pathways, and governance constraints defined by the Constitution.

The WorldModel architecture encompasses the full stack: the operational truth layer (world model), the four decision layers (CGL™, EDE™, ICL™, MAOL™), the substrate systems, the Web3/Web4/Web5/Web6 identity and consent patterns, and the operational disciplines. When referring to "a WorldModel venue" or "WorldModel architecture," it means a venue implementing this complete framework, not merely a venue that maintains state.