Which type of AI model makes numeric predictions?

The correct answer is regression. In machine learning, regression models are designed to predict continuous numerical values based on input features. Common use cases include predicting house prices, sales forecasting, temperature trends, or medical risk scores. According to AWS SageMaker documentation, regression tasks fall under supervised learning where the output is a real-valued number rather than a class label. For instance, linear regression is one of the most commonly used models for predicting a single continuous output. By contrast, diffusion models are typically used in generative image tasks, transformers are architectures (not specific to numeric output), and multi-modal models process various data types like text, images, and audio. Only regression models are purpose-built for making precise numeric predictions, which aligns with AWS best practices when the output is a quantity, not a category.

Referenced AWS AI/ML Documents and Study Guides:

AWS Machine Learning Specialty Guide – Regression Models

Amazon SageMaker Built-in Algorithms – Linear Learner (Regression and Classification)