What it means
With traditional software, developers write the rules. With machine learning, the system learns rules from examples. Given years of sales data, a model can learn to forecast next month's demand. Given labeled emails, it can learn to spot spam.
Large language models are one kind of machine learning. Classic ML models, which are smaller and focused on one prediction, are still the better choice for many numeric tasks.
Why it matters for a business
Machine learning helps where patterns are too complex for hand-written rules, such as demand forecasting, fraud detection and quality inspection. It needs good historical data, and results should be measured against simple baselines.
A business example
Things to watch
-
Results depend on the quality and quantity of data.
-
Compare with a simple baseline to prove the value.
-
Retrain when patterns change.
-
Explain predictions to the people who use them.