Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence that allows computer systems to learn from data without being explicitly programmed. It involves the use of algorithms to recognize patterns in data in order to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to perform the specific tasks. There are two main types of machine learning: supervised learning which uses labeled data to predict outputs, and unsupervised learning which finds hidden patterns in unlabeled data. Machine learning has many applications and enables organizations to analyze complex data automatically to make data-driven decisions.