According to the Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals (AI-900) official study guide and the Microsoft Learn module “Identify features of common machine learning types”, the three main machine learning model types differ by their purpose and the kind of data they use — whether supervised (using labeled data) or unsupervised (using unlabeled data).

Regression → A supervised machine learning model used to predict numeric values.Regression is a type of supervised learning that predicts continuous numerical outcomes. It learns the relationship between input features (independent variables) and a continuous target variable (dependent variable). Examples include predicting house prices, sales revenue, or temperature. The AI-900 curriculum emphasizes regression for “predicting numeric values based on known data,” using algorithms such as linear regression or decision tree regression.

Classification → A supervised machine learning model used to predict categories.Classification is also a supervised learning technique, but it predicts discrete outcomes (classes) instead of continuous values. It assigns input data to one or more categories based on learned patterns. Typical examples include spam detection (spam vs. not spam), sentiment analysis (positive, neutral, negative), or predicting loan approval (approved/denied). The AI-900 study materials describe classification as “predicting a category or label for new observations.”

Clustering → An unsupervised machine learning model used to group similar entities based on features.Clustering is an unsupervised learning approach, meaning it works on unlabeled data. It automatically identifies patterns and groups similar data points into clusters based on shared characteristics. Examples include customer segmentation (grouping customers by behavior) and grouping similar documents. The AI-900 learning module explains clustering as “discovering natural groupings in data without predefined labels.”

Thus, per Microsoft’s official AI-900 learning objectives:

Regression → Predicts numeric/continuous values.

Classification → Predicts categories/labels.

Clustering → Groups similar entities (unsupervised).

✅ Final Verified Configuration:

Regression → Predict numeric values

Classification → Predict categories

Clustering → Group similar entities based on features