Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Software that performs tasks that normally require human thinking.
Explanation
Artificial intelligence describes systems that automate human-like tasks such as understanding, decision-making and communicating. Today, AI primarily includes machine learning and generative models.
How it works
AI systems learn from data, recognize patterns and make decisions based on them - without being explicitly programmed for every situation.
Example
A chatbot that understands customer queries and answers them independently, or a system that automatically processes invoices.
Why it matters
AI is the underlying technology behind all modern automation – from chatbots to autonomous agents.
AI vs. machine learning vs. deep learning vs. generative AI
The terms are nested. Artificial intelligence is the umbrella term for systems that perform tasks that would otherwise require human intelligence. Machine learning is the subset in which systems learn from data rather than from hand-written rules. Deep learning is machine learning with deep neural networks. Generative AI uses such networks to create new content, and LLMs are generative models for language.
All AI systems in use today are so-called narrow AI. They can be extremely capable at specific tasks but have no consciousness and no general understanding of the world. Whether and when artificial general intelligence (AGI) will arrive is an open debate.
Where AI pays off in business
The biggest gains rarely come from the most spectacular use cases. They come from recurring knowledge work with lots of text: answering inquiries, reviewing documents and extracting data from them, preparing quotes and reports, and making internal knowledge searchable. Good candidates have high volume, a clear definition of quality and data that is already digital.
The most common obstacles are not technical: unclear goals, scattered data, missing usage rules and too little training. That is why successful projects usually start with an assessment and a prioritized list of use cases, followed by a pilot on real data with a measurable success criterion.
Frequently asked questions
What is artificial intelligence in simple terms?
Artificial intelligence is software that performs tasks that normally require human thinking, such as understanding language, recognizing images, making predictions or generating text, usually by learning patterns from data.
What is the difference between AI and machine learning?
AI is the broad field and machine learning is one approach within it. Not every AI system learns from data, but almost every AI system used in practice today is based on machine learning.
How does the EU AI Act define an AI system?
In short, as a machine-based system that operates with some degree of autonomy and infers from its inputs how to generate outputs such as predictions, content, recommendations or decisions. Purely rule-based software is generally not covered.