What is AI?
Artificial intelligence (AI) means computers doing work that normally needs human thinking, like understanding language, recognizing a photo or suggesting the next word you type. Most AI you use today was not programmed rule by rule. It learned from examples, and that way of building it is called machine learning.
What is machine learning?
Machine learning is the main way AI is built today. Instead of writing fixed rules, you show the computer many examples and it learns the pattern. An email service that has seen thousands of spam messages learns to spot new spam on its own.
What the computer learns is stored in a model. A model is the part of an AI system that has learned from data. Training a model, testing it and improving it is the daily work of a machine learning engineer.
What is generative AI?
Generative AI is machine learning that creates something new: text, pictures or code. When an assistant writes the first draft of an email for you, that is generative AI. It learned from a very large amount of text, and it predicts what should come next.
What is data science?
Data science is using data to answer questions and help people decide. A data scientist cleans the data, tests ideas with statistics and often builds a model that predicts. A shop that studies its sales to decide what to stock next month is using data science.
Which jobs use these skills?
Four jobs are common in AI projects. Each one sits at a different point, from the data to the customer. The table shows what each job does and the Ticker Academy program that prepares you for it.
| What the job does | Ticker Academy program | |
|---|---|---|
| Data scientist | Finds answers in data and helps the business decide | Data Science |
| Machine learning engineer | Trains AI models and tests how good they are | AI and Machine Learning |
| AI engineer | Builds apps that use AI models and keeps them running | AI Engineering |
| Forward deployed engineer | Makes an AI product work inside a customer's company | Forward Deployed Engineer |
Do you need to know coding?
For most of these jobs, yes, but you can start from zero. Python is the main language, and it is one of the easiest languages to learn. If you have never written code, learn the basics first, then move on to AI.
Where should a fresh graduate start?
Start from what you can do today and the job you want. There are three common starting points.
- You can code a little and want to build AI: start with AI and Machine Learning.
- You like numbers and business questions: start with Data Science.
- You have never written code: start with Reskilling. It begins with the first line of code.
Whichever you choose, build something every week and keep it. Projects you built yourself are what you will talk about in interviews. The page for fresh graduates compares the options.