What is artificial intelligence today?

Today "AI" refers to algorithms and systems that perform tasks traditionally requiring human-like intelligence, primarily using statistical learning. The dominant approach is machine learning (especially deep learning): neural networks trained on large datasets to recognize patterns and make decisions. Current AI excels at narrow tasks – image and speech recognition, language translation, recommendation, games – by learning from data. This is sometimes called narrow AI: systems are specialized, not genuinely "conscious" or broadly intelligent. There is no true general AI (AGI) yet. In practice, modern AI is applied math: it processes inputs to generate outputs using learned weights. Examples include virtual assistants (Siri), voice-to-text, medical image analysis, etc. These systems learn from examples rather than being explicitly programmed with rules.