# Deep Learning

> Deep Learning is a branch of machine learning that uses multi-layer neural networks to learn hierarchical representations from raw data.

Category: Foundational
Source: https://impetora.com/glossary/deep-learning
Part of: Impetora AI consulting glossary (https://impetora.com/glossary)

## What is Deep Learning?

Deep Learning models stack many layers of artificial neurons. Each layer transforms its input into a higher-level representation, so the network learns features automatically rather than requiring hand-engineered ones. Deep learning underpins modern computer vision, speech recognition, machine translation, and large language models. Training requires large datasets, GPU or TPU compute, and careful regularisation to avoid over-fitting. Inference can run on smaller hardware once the model is trained, but cost and latency depend on model size.

## How does Deep Learning apply to enterprise AI?

Enterprises rely on deep learning for OCR pipelines, voice transcription, image classification in claims and medical workflows, and any task that involves unstructured text, image, or audio input.

## Related terms

- [Neural Network](https://impetora.com/glossary/neural-network) - A neural network is a computational model loosely inspired by biological neurons, in which weighted connections between simple units learn to map inputs to outputs.
- [Foundation Model](https://impetora.com/glossary/foundation-model) - A foundation model is a large neural network pre-trained on broad data and designed to be adapted to many downstream tasks.
- [Large Language Model](https://impetora.com/glossary/large-language-model) - A Large Language Model (LLM) is a foundation model trained on text to predict the next token, capable of generating, summarising, and reasoning over natural language.
- [Inference](https://impetora.com/glossary/inference) - Inference is the act of running a trained model on new inputs to produce predictions or generated output.

## External references

- [Goodfellow, Bengio & Courville, Deep Learning](https://www.deeplearningbook.org/)

---

Impetora is a custom AI consultancy and solutions partner for enterprises in regulated industries. Submit a project at https://impetora.com/intake.