Sample efficiency – Definition & Meaning

Definition of sample efficiency

: the amount of useful learning or task performance an AI system gains from each training example, observation, or interaction, with greater sample efficiency meaning that fewer samples are needed to reach a given level of performance
- Sample efficiency matters in robotics because every failed physical attempt costs real time and can damage equipment.
- The model-based agent learned the control task with fewer interactions and therefore had better sample efficiency.

Two meanings, one word

In everyday English

Efficiency is the ability to produce a result while wasting as little of a resource as possible.

In AI

The amount of useful learning or task performance an AI system gains from each training example, observation, or interaction, with greater sample efficiency meaning that…

Origin & history

Sample efficiency grew from statistical learning and reinforcement learning, where researchers compare how much data or environmental experience different methods require to reach a target performance level. The issue is especially important when samples are expensive, slow, risky, or impossible to simulate accurately.

Test yourself

Which of these is the meaning of sample efficiency?

Related terms

reinforcement learning a way of training in which a model tries actions, receives rewards or penalties, and gradually… imitation learning a way of training an AI system or robot to perform a task by learning from examples of an… few-shot done by including a handful of examples in the prompt so the model can copy the pattern… data labeling the work of tagging raw data with correct answers or categories, such as marking objects in… synthetic data training data generated by AI models or simulations rather than collected from the real world physical AI AI that understands and acts in the physical world, powering robots, self-driving cars… world model an AI system that learns how the physical world behaves, such as how objects move and react…

Cite this entry

"Sample efficiency." AI Dictionary, Dadgogo, https://dadgogo.com/dictionary/sample-efficiency/. Accessed 12 Oct. 2026.