Every conference generates its own vocabulary. This is the one that Congress speakers reached for, again and again, when the old words weren’t quite enough. 

Three days of sessions in Madrid produced a lot of new language – not jargon for its own sake, but a genuine attempt by speakers to name things that didn’t have good names yet. An AI system so well integrated, no one notices it’s there. A form of sovereignty that isn’t about owning everything. A city that responds to people instead of managing traffic. 

Some of these terms will stick. Some may fade by next year’s edition. Either way, understanding them is the fastest way to actually follow what practitioners in this space are talking about right now — in procurement meetings, in strategy documents, and in the sessions that will make up G4I 2027. 

We’ve pulled together the terms that came up most often, or landed hardest, across the Congress — defined in plain language, with the session and speaker who introduced or exemplified each one. Not a dictionary. A field guide to how the GovTech community is currently thinking.