AI-900 Question 86
Single answerA retail company wants to predict the future sales revenue for each of its stores based on historical sales data, store location, and seasonal trends. Which type of machine learning scenario does this represent?
- A
Classification
- B
Regression
- C
Clustering
- D
Reinforcement learning
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: B
Explanation
The scenario describes predicting a continuous numerical value (sales revenue) based on historical and contextual data, which is a classic regression machine learning problem. Regression is the appropriate choice whenever the output variable is a continuous value rather than a discrete category.
- A. Incorrect.
Classification is used when the goal is to categorize data into discrete classes or labels, such as predicting whether a customer will buy a product (Yes/No). Predicting future sales revenue involves continuous numerical values, not discrete categories, so this is incorrect.
- B. Correct.
Regression is used to predict continuous numerical values, such as sales revenue, temperature, or stock prices. In this scenario, the company is predicting sales revenue, which makes regression the correct scenario.
- C. Incorrect.
Clustering is used to group similar data points together based on their features, such as segmenting customers into groups for targeted marketing. It does not predict specific numerical values like sales revenue, so this is incorrect.
- D. Incorrect.
Reinforcement learning involves training a model to make decisions in an environment to maximize a reward, such as teaching a robot to navigate a maze. This scenario does not involve decision-making in an environment, so this is incorrect.