Generative AI
AI that produces new content text, images, audio, video, code rather than just classifying or predicting.
Generative AI is the broad category that includes language models, image generators, audio models, video models, and code models. The defining feature is that the output is new content, generated probabilistically, rather than a label, score, or selection from a fixed set.
The generative AI boom of 2022-2026 reshaped software, content creation, education, and customer service. Most of the tools listed in our /ai-tools directory are generative.
'Generative AI' has become almost synonymous with 'AI' in mainstream conversation, though strictly it's just one branch. Discriminative AI (classification, ranking, recommendation) is older, less glamorous, and still does enormous amounts of practical work behind the scenes.