AI-Assisted Statistics for Data Scientists: 50+ Essential Concepts Using R and Python

Statistical methods are a key part of data science, yet few data scientists have formal statistical training. Courses and books on basic statistics rarely cover the topic from a data science perspective. The third edition of this popular guide expands its practical foundations in R and Python into the modern AI toolkit, with new chapters on neural networks, deep learning, and large language models. Generative AI is integrated throughout, showing how tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini work, and how they can support real-world statistical workflows.

This book highlights concepts that matter most when working with data, building predictive models, and deploying AI responsibly. If you're comfortable with R or Python and have had some exposure to basic statistics, this concise reference will boost your statistical literacy, your understanding of how AI works, and your confidence in real-world data science and AI projects.

• Conduct exploratory analysis of data to improve quality and model outcomes
• Apply sampling and experimental design to reduce bias and answer questions with clarity
• Use regression to understand data-generating processes and detect anomalies
• Build predictive models using classification, clustering, and unsupervised learning with unbalanced data

Peter Bruce founded and grew the Institute for Statistics Education at Statistics.com, which now offers about one hundred courses in statistics, roughly a third of which are aimed at the data scientist. In recruiting top authors as instructors and forging a marketing strategy to reach professional data scientists, Peter has developed both a broad view of the target market and his own expertise to reach it.

Andrew Bruce has over 30 years of experience in statistics and data science in academia, government, and business. He has a PhD in statistics from the University of Washington and has published numerous papers in refereed journals. He has developed statistical-based solutions to a wide range of problems faced by a variety of industries, from established financial firms to internet startups, and offers a deep understanding of the practice of data science.

Peter Gedeck has over 30 years of experience in scientific computing and data science. After 20 years as a computational chemist at Novartis, he now works as a senior data scientist at Collaborative Drug Discovery. He specializes in the development of machine learning algorithms to predict biological and physicochemical properties of drug candidates. Coauthor of Machine Learning for Business Analytics, he earned a PhD in chemistry from the University of Erlangen-Nuernberg in Germany and studied mathematics at the Fernuniversitaet Hagen, Germany.