AI engineering glossary · Statistics inference
What is MDE (minimum detectable effect)?
Minimum detectable effect (also called MDE): The smallest true change an experiment is designed to reliably detect at the chosen significance level and power. Smaller effects need much larger samples, so it is fixed at design time from business value.
Minimum detectable effect: an example
Deciding that only a lift of 1 percentage point in signup rate is worth shipping and sizing the experiment to detect exactly that.
Related terms
More Statistics inference terms
- Multiple comparisons problem
- Non-parametric test
- Novelty effect
- Null hypothesis
- One-tailed and two-tailed tests
- P-hacking
- P-value
- Paired t-test
Where you learn it
Minimum detectable effect is part of the AI Engineering Program, which teaches it with notes, a hands-on lab and an exam. The first lesson is free.