What is Generative AI?

Generative AI refers to AI that produces new content — text, images, audio, video or program code — based on patterns it has learned from data. Unlike traditional AI focused on classification or prediction, it can create original output from scratch in response to a human instruction (a prompt).

Common examples include text-generating AI chatbots (such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude), image generators, video generators and music generators. Most are built on foundational technologies such as large language models (LLMs) or diffusion models.

In business it is increasingly used for writing, summarizing, translation, coding, document creation and customer support, and shifts in its usage share and popularity draw daily attention.