The first observations of an autoinducer-controlled phenotype in bacteria were reported in 1970, by Kenneth Nealson, Terry Platt, and J. Woodland Hastings, who observed what they described as a conditioning of the medium in which they had grown the bioluminescent marine bacterium Aliivibrio fischeri. These bacteria did not synthesize luciferase—and therefore did not luminesce—in freshly inoculated culture but only after the bacterial population had increased significantly. Because they attributed this conditioning of the medium to the growing population of cells itself, they referred to the phenomenon as autoinduction. In 1994, after study of the autoinduction phenomenon had expanded into several additional bacteria, the term "quorum sensing" was coined in a review by W. Claiborne Fuqua, Stephen C. Winans, and E. Peter Greenberg.
Dr. Stephen Winnans did not believe the word "autoinducer" fully enveloped the true process, so introduced the world to the term "Quorum Sensing" in 1994 through his article review of autoinduction in bacteria. This new phrase helped relieve confusion between 'autoinduction" and "autoregulation". The phrase "Quorum Sensing" was not stumbled onto, but rather created through trial and error. Dr. Winnans created many options, such as "gridlockins", "communiolins", and "quoromones". Eventually, it was "Quorum Sensing that stuck, and Dr. Stephen Winnans phrase spread quickly into the world. Quorum Sensing is now involved in practically every article written about autoinduction throughout the scientific community.