Definition
Plain language
A way of saying where something sits in a ranked list — the 90th percentile is higher than 90 percent of the rest.
As stated in the literature
Rank-based location statistic; used here to express how much of a recommendation shift is markup above the no-information baseline versus markdown below it.
Also called: percentiles, percentile terms
Why it matters: Ranking a choice against all the alternatives shows whether an assistant is drifting toward the expensive end, which a single price tag on its own never reveals.
For example, if a recommended hotel sits at the 80th percentile of the price list, it is more expensive than four out of five options the assistant could have picked.
Heard on the show
“Round-by-round, at the ninety-ninth percentile.”Episode 016 — Why Your Coding Agent Stalls While the GPU Runs Hot