What is artificial intelligence (AI)?

 What is artificial intelligence (AI)?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a set of technologies that empowers computers to learn, reason, and perform a variety of advanced tasks in ways that used to require human intelligence, such as understanding language, analyzing data, and even providing helpful suggestions. It’s a transformational technology that can bring meaningful and positive change to people and societies and the world.

It encompasses many different disciplines, including computer science, data analytics and statistics, hardware and software engineering, linguistics, neuroscience, and even philosophy and psychology. 

AI is about teaching computers to do the amazing things our own brains can do, from understanding the world around them to learning new things and even coming up with fresh ideas. For instance, AI is used in optical character recognition (OCR) to pull text and data from various images and documents. This process transforms unstructured content into structured, business-ready data, helping uncover valuable insights.

How does AI work?

Artificial intelligence techniques, though diverse, all fundamentally rely on data, algorithms, and computational power. AI systems learn and improve through exposure to vast amounts of data, identifying patterns and relationships that humans might miss. This data serves as the training material, the quality and quantity of which are crucial for the AI's performance.

As mentioned earlier, AI isn't a single technology but a broad field encompassing several key areas:

Machine Learning (ML): This is a type of AI where systems learn from data to identify patterns and make predictions or decisions without direct programming. Imagine teaching a computer to recognize a bird by showing it thousands of bird pictures; it learns what a bird looks like on its own.

Deep Learning (DL): A subfield of ML, deep learning uses artificial neural networks with many layers (hence "deep") to learn from data. These networks are inspired by the structure of the human brain and are particularly good at complex tasks like image and speech recognition.

Natural Language Processing (NLP): NLP enables computers to understand, interpret, and generate human language. This is what powers voice assistants like Siri and Alexa, translation services, and chatbots.

Computer Vision: This area allows computers to "see" and interpret visual information from the world, such as images and videos. It's used in everything from facial recognition to self-driving cars.

Want to learn how to get started with AI? Take the free beginner's introduction to generative AI.