Glossary
Every term we use on this site, defined in plain English. No jargon walls, no assumed knowledge — just what each concept means and why it matters to a small business.
AI support
AI IT support is a support service where an AI agent, not a human technician, diagnoses and resolves IT issues. The agent reads the request, checks the user's identity and entitlements, queries connected systems such as Microsoft 365, and either performs an approved fix or explains the steps to take. At AlwaysOnIT every ticket is handled this way, 24 hours a day, with no queue and no shift handover.
An autonomous agent is software that can plan and carry out multi-step tasks toward a goal rather than answering a single question. In IT support it means the agent can check a mailbox rule, spot the misconfiguration, apply the fix, and confirm the result — within pre-approved boundaries and with every action logged.
Service model
An AI-only helpdesk is a support desk with no human technicians on the resolution path. Requests are answered entirely by an AI agent, and anything outside its scope is declined openly rather than escalated to a person. The trade-off is honest: faster, cheaper, always-on support for common IT problems, and no capability for physical or on-site work.
Human-in-the-loop approval is a checkpoint where a named person on the customer's side must confirm an action before the AI performs it. It applies to destructive, bulk, or irreversible changes such as mass deletions or off-boarding, so automation stays fast for routine work without removing human judgement from consequential decisions.
A managed service provider is a company that runs IT for other businesses under a monthly contract, usually with human engineers, tiered support hours, and on-site capability. An AI-only service like AlwaysOnIT covers the remote, repeatable portion of that work at a far lower price, and openly declines the physical work an MSP still handles.
A service level agreement sets the response and resolution targets a provider commits to. Traditional desks quote first-response times measured in hours because a human has to become available; an AI-only desk responds in seconds because availability is not the constraint, so the meaningful measure becomes resolution rate rather than pickup speed.
Per-seat pricing charges a fixed amount for each user each month, rather than by ticket or by hour. AlwaysOnIT charges £4 per user per month with a £12 monthly minimum per company, billed in advance and pro-rated when seats change, so support cost scales predictably with headcount and never with how often people ask for help.
Identity & access
Multi-factor authentication requires a second proof of identity — usually a one-time code or an approval on a trusted device — alongside a password. It is the single most effective control against stolen credentials for small businesses, and MFA re-enrolment after a lost or replaced phone is one of the most common tickets an AI helpdesk handles.
Conditional access is a policy engine, most commonly in Microsoft Entra ID, that decides whether a sign-in is allowed based on signals such as user, device, location, and risk level. Misconfigured policies are a frequent cause of sudden lockouts, and diagnosing them is standard work for an AI IT support agent.
An identity provider is the system that authoritatively confirms who a user is — Microsoft Entra ID, Google Workspace, or Okta in most small businesses. Support tools should verify users against the identity provider rather than trusting an email address, which is how an AI agent can safely act on an account it has never seen before.
Single sign-on lets staff use one verified identity to reach many applications instead of a separate password for each. It reduces password reuse, makes off-boarding a single action, and gives a support agent one reliable place to check entitlements when a user reports they cannot get into an app.
Off-boarding is the process of removing a departing employee's access: disabling the account, revoking active sessions and tokens, reassigning mailbox and file ownership, and reclaiming licences. Done late or partially it is one of the most common causes of small-business data loss and unexpected licence spend.
Security
A scoped token is a short-lived credential that grants permission for one narrow action rather than broad administrative access. AlwaysOnIT holds no standing admin credentials for customer systems: each fix requests a token limited to that task, uses it once, and lets it expire, which limits the damage any single mistake or compromise could cause.
Zero standing access means no permanent administrative rights are held over a customer's environment. Privileges are issued only at the moment of use, for a single scoped task, and revoked immediately afterwards. It is the main control that stops a support provider becoming a permanent open door into your tenant.
Blast radius describes how much damage an action or a breach could cause if it goes wrong. A password reset for one user has a small blast radius; disabling conditional access for a whole tenant has a large one. AlwaysOnIT executes low-blast-radius actions directly and requires an admin approval for anything wider.
Device posture is the current security state of the machine making a request: patch level, disk encryption, screen lock, antivirus status, and whether it is managed. Checking posture on each session means a support agent knows it is talking to the right person on a trusted endpoint before it changes anything.
Phishing triage is the process of assessing a suspicious message: checking headers and sender authentication, inspecting links safely, deciding whether credentials were entered, and then containing the damage by resetting passwords and revoking sessions. Fast triage matters more than perfect analysis, which suits an always-available AI agent.
Cyber Essentials is a UK government-backed scheme covering five basic technical controls: firewalls, secure configuration, user access control, malware protection, and patch management. Many UK contracts require it. Aligning to the control set is useful even before certification, and AlwaysOnIT designs to it while being explicit about what it has not yet certified.
UK GDPR is the United Kingdom's data protection regime, governing how organisations collect, store, and process personal data, and giving individuals rights of access and erasure. For an IT support provider it dictates where data is stored, how long it is kept, who may access it, and what must be recorded in a data processing agreement.
Data residency is the physical location where your data is stored and processed. It matters for legal, contractual, and procurement reasons, especially in the UK and EU. AlwaysOnIT stores tickets, logs, and embeddings in UK regions, and backups stay within the UK.
A sub-processor is a third party a service provider uses to process customer data on its behalf — for example a cloud host, a payment provider, or a model provider. Reputable providers publish the full list with locations and purposes so customers can carry out their own due diligence.
An audit log is an append-only record of what happened, when, and under whose authority. In AI support it should capture every prompt, tool call, and credential use, so a customer can reconstruct exactly what the agent did during an incident and export the evidence for their own compliance reviews.
Microsoft 365
SPF, DKIM and DMARC are DNS records that together prove your email genuinely comes from your domain. SPF lists permitted senders, DKIM signs each message, and DMARC tells receiving servers what to do when a check fails. Missing or misaligned records are the usual reason legitimate email lands in spam.
A shared mailbox is a Microsoft 365 mailbox several people can read and send from — typically info@ or accounts@ — without needing its own paid licence. Permission and send-as configuration problems on shared mailboxes are among the most frequent support requests in small businesses.
Microsoft Entra ID, formerly Azure Active Directory, is the identity and access service behind Microsoft 365. It holds user accounts, groups, MFA registration, and conditional access policies. Most Microsoft 365 sign-in, licensing, and access problems are ultimately resolved inside Entra ID rather than in the app the user complains about.
Microsoft Intune is the device management service that enrols laptops and phones, applies configuration and compliance policies, deploys applications, and can wipe a lost device. It is what lets a remote support agent confirm a machine is patched and encrypted rather than taking the user's word for it.
Get started
No onboarding calls. No sales process. Connect your devices and start raising tickets in under ten minutes.