AI 101: The Essential Types of AI

There’s a lot of jargon tossed around when it comes to artificial intelligence. In this post, I’ll break down a straightforward definition of AI and give an overview of the three main types you’re likely to encounter.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): In the broadest of terms, artificial intelligence is a category of computer science and mathematics that offers a set of techniques enabling computers to become exceptionally good at pattern recognition.

Machine Learning (ML): Imagine this: I hand you a spreadsheet with a few dozen rows, each containing three columns: zip code, square footage, and sale price. With enough time, you’d likely start to notice patterns linking zip codes, square footage, and sale prices. So much so that if I gave you a new zip code and square footage, you could probably make a pretty confident guess at the sale price.

Now, instead of doing this in your head, a computer performs the same task using machine learning algorithms. Computers can make these types of predictions on massive, complex datasets—this is the essence of machine learning.

Deep Learning (DL): Deep learning is an advanced subset of machine learning that uses more complex algorithms, originally inspired by our understanding of neural networks in the human brain.

Applications of deep learning include text translation, image recognition, and numerous innovations in self-driving cars. These applications require data that is often more ambiguous than the structured data commonly used in traditional machine learning, and deep learning networks are designed specifically to manage this increased complexity.

Generative AI (GenAI): A specialized subset of deep learning, allows computers to create content by recognizing patterns in extensive datasets analyzed during training.

One well-known example of GenAI is ChatGPT, a language model that generates text. It is believed to be trained on a large portion of internet data. At its core, ChatGPT excels at predicting the next word in a sequence based on the words you provide in a prompt, often in the form of a question, and the words it has already generated.

Understanding AI basics is essential for today’s business leaders—it opens doors to smarter decisions and new opportunities. This is the first in our AI 101 series, where we’ll cover key concepts in clear, non-technical terms. More to come!

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P.S. Every word here is lovingly typed by yours truly, so if you spot a typo… let’s just call it a “personal touch.”