Definition

A field of AI that enables computers to interpret and act on visual information from images and video. Core tasks include image classification (labeling a whole image), object detection (locating items with bounding boxes), semantic segmentation (labeling every pixel), and facial recognition. Modern systems rely on convolutional neural networks and, increasingly, vision transformers trained on millions of labeled images.

Why it matters

Computer vision turns cameras into sensors that scale. It powers autonomous driving, automated quality inspection on production lines, medical image analysis, retail shelf monitoring, and document scanning, replacing slow manual review with real-time decisions.

Related terms in Computer Vision

CNN (Convolutional Neural Network)

An AI architecture designed to look at pictures, scanning them like a grid to find edges, shapes, and objects.

Object Detection

An AI that can find and identify multiple objects in an image, drawing boxes around each person, car, or sign it sees.

Vision Transformer (ViT)

Applying the Transformer architecture (originally built for text) to images, and discovering it works even better than CNNs.

Image Segmentation

Teaching an AI to color-code every pixel in an image, identifying exactly where each object begins and ends.

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