Middleware
Middleware is the intermediate layer that sits between your systems and manages the traffic: translating formats, queueing, retrying and keeping track of what was exchanged.
Connect five systems directly to each other and you have ten links that each fail in their own way. With an intermediate layer each system connects once, to the layer, and the layer handles the rest. That is clearer, and when a system is replaced only that one link needs redoing.
At byte8 our own hub is that layer: orders, stock, customers and invoices come together in it, and agents and dashboards work on top of it. That turns a new integration or agent into an extension rather than a new project.
Other terms
Knowledge base (with AI)
An AI knowledge base is a searchable collection of your own documents, manuals and agreements, in which staff or customers ask a question in plain language and get an answer with a source.
Shadow AI
Shadow AI is AI use by employees outside the organisation's view: pasting customer data into a free chatbot, having contracts summarised in a tool nobody approved.
Single source of truth
A single source of truth means every piece of data, such as a price, a stock level or a customer address, is managed in one place and arrives everywhere else automatically from there.
Want to know what this means for your business?
Tell us where you lose time or margin. We show where AI pays back fastest, in plain language.