Predictive analytics is a branch of advanced analytics that makes predictions about future outcomes using historical data combined with statistical modeling, data mining techniques, and machine learning. Companies employ predictive analytics to find patterns in this data to identify risks and opportunities. Predictive analytics is often associated with big data and data science. Companies today are swimming in data that resides across transactional databases, equipment log files, images, video, sensors, or other data sources. To gain insights from this data, data scientists use deep learning and machine learning algorithms to find patterns and make predictions about future events. These include linear and nonlinear regression, neural networks, support vector machines, and decision trees. Learnings obtained through predictive analytics can then be used further within prescriptive analytics to drive actions based on predictive insights.