Logistic regression explained in 1 minute
Is an email spam or not? Will a customer buy or not buy? You can find out using logistic regression. It uses data to estimate the probability that something will happen. Instead of predicting a value like price, it predicts how likely an outcome is.
It works by looking at different pieces of information and weighing how much each one matters. These are combined to estimate how likely something is to happen, giving a probability between 0 and 1. If that probability is high enough, the model decides “yes”; otherwise, it decides “no.”
It’s useful because it’s reliable, easy to explain, and helps you make better decisions under uncertainty. That’s why it’s widely used in business, medicine, and finance.
Is it cold outside?
You can think of logistic regression as deciding whether you’ll wear a jacket today. This short video from Analytics Vidhya explains it. Watch now.
What we’re reading
And for a fun real-world example of logistic regression: I love watching triathlons (from my sofa), so I enjoyed reading this article by data science student Anh Nguyen. They used logistic regression on Olympic and Ironman data to estimate an athlete's chance of making the podium based on age, BMI, and performance history.