The Stack
AI 101 — What is AI inference?
Every answer an AI gives you is inference: running a trained model on new input to produce an output. Training is how a model learns; inference is how it works. If training is teaching, inference is doing. Why it matters right now. Training makes the headlines — a new model, a bigger cluster, a record run — but training happens once per model, while inference happens every time anyone asks a question. That asymmetry is why the money has shifted: Google Cloud describes inference as the phase "wh
