What Is Sentiment Analysis and How Does It Work in AI?

Let’s talk about sentiment analysis, one of those behind-the-scenes AI tools that’s doing a lot more than most people realise.

In simple terms, it helps machines get the gist of how people are feeling based on what they’ve written. Is it positive, negative, neutral… or maybe something more specific like excitement, frustration, or even joy? It’s basically teaching AI to pick up on our tone, not just our words.

It falls under the Natural Language Processing (NLP) umbrella, and works by picking up on emotional signals in our words. So when someone writes “love this,” “absolutely amazing,” or “perfect product,” the system learns, yep, this person’s happy.

The smarter systems go beyond just spotting trigger words. They get that “not bad” is a compliment, even though it includes “bad.” And they know that “pretty good” doesn’t hit quite as hard as “absolutely fantastic.”

How Businesses Use Sentiment Analysis

This tech is a game-changer when it comes to listening at scale. Businesses don’t have to scroll through thousands of reviews or tweets one by one.

They can instantly see which products are getting love - and which ones are getting dragged.
If you’re ever in a PR crisis, sentiment analysis shows how the public mood shifts in real time so you can tweak your response!