inference
What It Means
Inference is when your trained AI model actually does the work it was designed for - making predictions, classifications, or decisions on new data it hasn't seen before. It's the production phase where the model moves from training mode to actively solving business problems by processing real-world inputs and producing outputs.
Why Chief AI Officers Care
Inference is where your AI investment generates actual business value, but it's also where most operational costs accumulate through compute resources, latency issues, and scaling challenges. The speed, accuracy, and cost-efficiency of inference directly impact customer experience, operational efficiency, and your AI ROI, making it critical for production planning and budget management.
Real-World Example
A retail company's trained recommendation engine performs inference every time a customer visits their website - the model processes the customer's browsing history, past purchases, and current session data to instantly generate personalized product recommendations that appear on their screen.
Common Confusion
People often confuse inference with training, but training is the learning phase where the model studies historical data to build knowledge, while inference is the working phase where that trained model applies its knowledge to make decisions on new, unseen data.
Industry-Specific Applications
See how this term applies to healthcare, finance, manufacturing, government, tech, and insurance.
Healthcare: In healthcare, inference occurs when trained AI models analyze real patient data to support clinical decisions, such as ...
Finance: In finance, inference occurs when trained models analyze real-time market data, customer transactions, or loan applicati...
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Includes:
- 6 industry-specific applications
- Relevant regulations by sector
- Real compliance scenarios
- Implementation guidance
Technical Definitions
NISTNational Institute of Standards and Technology
"The stage of ML in which a model is applied to a task. For example, a classifier model produces the classification of a test sample."Source: NISTIR_8269_Draft
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