Which phase of analytics uses past data and models to estimate what’s likely to happen...

The correct answer is A .

Predictive analytics is the analytics phase that uses historical data and models to estimate future outcomes. The CPCM course explicitly includes predictive analytics as part of advanced category analytics, including regression models, clustering algorithms, collaborative filtering, and time-to-event models. IBM defines predictive analytics as a branch of advanced analytics that makes predictions about future outcomes using historical data, statistical modeling, data mining, and machine learning.

Option C, descriptive analytics, explains what happened in the past. Option D, prescriptive analytics, recommends what action should be taken. Option B, generative, refers to creating new content or outputs and is not the correct analytics phase here. The phrase “what’s likely to happen next” is the giveaway: that is predictive analytics.