Definition
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a field of computer science concerned with creating systems capable of performing tasks involving reasoning, learning, pattern recognition, perception or decision support.
Human Explanation
AI includes methods that enable computers to perform tasks that previously required human capabilities or judgement.
Why it Matters
AI supports the automation of analysis, information processing and selected decision-related tasks at a scale that would be difficult to achieve manually.
Conceptual Boundary
AI does not imply consciousness, understanding or independent human-like thought. It covers many problem-solving approaches, of which Machine Learning is only one.
Practical Perspective
Many contemporary AI applications use data and Machine Learning models, but the label AI does not by itself describe how a system works, how reliable it is or how much human oversight it requires.
Conceptual Structure
Artificial Intelligence is the broader field. Machine Learning is one approach within AI. Supervised and Unsupervised Learning are two learning paradigms within ML.
A trained model produces outputs such as scores, classifications or predictions. Those outputs may support a decision, but they are not automatically decisions themselves.