In plain words
Artificial intelligence is a broad field concerned with computational systems that perform tasks such as recognizing patterns, planning actions, understanding language, or solving problems. It also describes the resulting technologies.
A closer look
AI includes several approaches. Some systems use rules and search; others learn patterns from data. Machine learning is a major part of AI, and deep learning is one family of machine-learning methods. Generative AI is another useful label: it describes systems that produce content rather than only classifying or ranking it.
These categories overlap. A language model can be a deep-learning model used inside a generative AI application. An AI product may combine that model with ordinary software, a database, and hand-written rules. Understanding which part performs which job is more informative than treating “AI” as one mechanism.
In practice
A spam classifier, a route-planning system, and an image generator all belong under the AI umbrella, even though they solve different problems with different techniques.
A useful distinction
A system does not need human-level general intelligence or consciousness to count as AI. Success on one task also does not establish that it can reliably perform unrelated tasks.