What's the difference between NLU and NLP | Algolia | Algolia

Natural Language Understanding (NLU) is a field that focuses on how computers comprehend human language, both spoken and written. It has numerous applications, such as email management, where NLU can identify spam, prioritize messages, or suggest related emails to the recipient. The distinction between NLU and Natural Language Processing (NLP) lies in their objectives; NLP processes natural language into computer-friendly formats, while NLU aims to understand the meaning behind the language. NLU is complex due to the intricacy of human language, which often requires machine learning (ML) models to learn patterns over time. These ML models are trained on large datasets and fine-tuned for specific tasks or domains. Advancements in computing and machine learning have significantly improved NLU capabilities over recent years, with more powerful and integrated solutions expected in the future.