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Technical GlossaryMachine Learning

Exponential Smoothing

A time series method that assigns weighted importance to past observations and can model level, trend, and seasonality.

Exponential smoothing methods produce forecasts by assigning greater weight to recent observations. Variants such as Holt and Holt-Winters allow trend and seasonality components to be incorporated into the model. They are widely used in practice because of their simplicity and strong short-term forecasting ability. However, in series with complex structural breaks, more advanced models may be required.