Machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence that allows computer systems to learn automatically and improve over time without being explicitly programmed. It focuses on developing algorithms that can access data to learn on their own. Machine learning is already being used in applications like self-driving cars, online recommendations, and fraud detection. It enables the analysis of large amounts of data to detect opportunities or risks faster and more accurately than human labor alone. While not a solution itself, machine learning is changing how business is done and the required workforce in various sectors.