What is machine learning?

Machine-learning algorithms use statistics to find patterns in massive* amounts of data. And data, here, encompasses a lot of things--numbers, words, images, clicks, what have you. If it can be digitally stored, it can be fed into a machine-learning algorithm. Machine learning is the process that powers many of the services we use today--recommendation systems like those on Netflix, YouTube, and Spotify; search engines like Google and Baidu; social-media feeds like Facebook and Twitter; voice assistants like Siri and Alexa.