What is machine learning?

Machine learning is the process of building analytical models to automatically discover previously unknown patterns from data that indicate associations, sequences, anomalies (outliers), classifications, and clusters and segments. These patterns reveal hidden rules as to why an event happened--for example, rules that predict likely customer churn. The widely used Cross Industry Standard Process for Data Mining (CRISP-DM) methodology is used to develop predictive analytical models. CRISP-DM includes six phases: business understanding, data understanding, data preparation, model development using supervised and unsupervised learning, model evaluation and model deployment. The business understanding phase involves defining the business problem or use case, the business objectives and the business questions that need to be answered.