Augmented intelligence describes an approach to AI that's explicitly framed around enhancing and supporting human decision-making, rather than replacing human judgment entirely. The emphasis is on productive collaboration between people and machines, where the AI handles what it does well, processing large volumes of data and surfacing patterns quickly, while people contribute what they do well, like contextual understanding, ethical judgment, and handling situations the data doesn't fully capture.
This framing matters in fields like medicine and finance, where an AI system might flag a likely diagnosis or a suspicious transaction, but a human professional makes the final call using context the system can't fully see. Advocates of the term prefer it over plain "artificial intelligence" specifically because it positions the technology as a tool that extends what people can do, rather than an autonomous replacement for human expertise.
