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The Madison Avenue Field GuideA field guide to marketing & advertising, by Brandon Mina

GlossaryAI in MarketingInference

AI in Marketing

Inference

The act of running a trained AI model to produce an output; inference costs drive the price of AI features at scale.

By Brandon MinaCEO, BrandPilot AIUpdated November 2026

Short answer

Inference is the act of running a trained AI model to produce an output, such as a generated sentence, image, or prediction. Unlike training, which happens once or periodically, inference happens every time a user makes a request. Because each request consumes computing resources, inference costs largely determine the price of offering AI features at scale.