AI engineering glossary · ML fundamentals
What is latent variable?
Latent variable (also called Hidden variable): A hidden quantity that is never observed directly but is inferred from what is observed, and that helps explain the data. Models with such variables can capture underlying factors such as topics or customer types.
Latent variable: an example
A customer's true 'interest in fashion' is not recorded, but is inferred from browsing and purchase behaviour.
Related terms
More ML fundamentals terms
- Learning curve
- Leave-one-out cross-validation
- Linear separability
- Machine learning
- Majority-class baseline
- Manifold hypothesis
- Meta-learning
- Model
Where you learn it
Latent variable is part of the AI Engineering Program, which teaches it with notes, a hands-on lab and an exam. The first lesson is free.