AI Definitions: Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics - This method of speculating about future events uses past data to make recommendations. Researchers create complex mathematical algorithms in an effort to discover patterns in the data. One doesn't know in advance what data is important. The statistical models created by predictive analytics are designed to discover which of the pieces of data will predict the desired outcome. While correlation is not causation, a cause-and-effect relationship is not needed to make predictions. This is ideal for anticipating what a user is most likely to be interested in based on past behavior and user characteristics. However, after gathering this data, data scientists will often turn to causal AI in order to gauge the impact on user behavior. Some people will use the terms “predictive analytics” and “predictive AI” interchangeably, but others will treat predictive analytics as a broader term that includes non-AI methods such as statistical modeling and regression analysis.

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