Welcome back to "The Anthropology of AI: The Useful Tech Series"! I'm your host, Val (Valerie Nilsson), an anthropologist turned technologist and Enterprise AI Strategy Lead at Google. In this episode, we tackle a foundational question: What is AI, anyway? I'll be sharing insights from my Google journey, taking you from Google Ads to Generative AI, to help clarify some of the key concepts that often feel shrouded in jargon. Join me as we demystify terms like Machine Learning (ML) and Generative AI, tracing their evolution through real-world examples from my career – from revolutionizing ad campaigns and scaling translations to the intelligent data crunching of tools like Google Market Finder. Discover how we moved from simple automation to systems that learn from data and now, to AI that can create entirely new content mimicking human creativity. My goal for "The Anthropology of AI" is to cut through the noise, find clarity in the chaos, and explore how technology can genuinely be useful for humankind.