Data mining is the process of analyzing large amounts of data in order to identify patterns, anomalies and correlations. People who work in the data mining field use this type of data analysis to help predict the outcome of business decisions such as moves to increase revenue or reduce risk.
As businesses rely more and more on digital processes, they accumulate a wealth of data. Companies today can track everything from customer contacts and sales transactions to internal processes. Gleaning insights from all that “big data” is the role of a data mining professional.
As a branch of data science, data mining represents an intersection of statistics (the study of data relationships), artificial intelligence (the theory of human intelligence displayed by machines) and machine learning (the development of algorithms that learn and predict behavior).