What is the purpose of sentiment analysis?

Sentiment analysis is a technique used to assess and determine the emotional tone conveyed within a piece of text. This process typically involves natural language processing, machine learning, and text analysis to identify whether the sentiment expressed is positive, negative, or neutral.

The significance of sentiment analysis lies in its ability to help businesses and organizations gain insights into customer opinions, social media discussions, and feedback on products or services. By understanding the emotional undertone of written content, companies can make informed decisions about marketing strategies, product development, and customer engagement.

In contrast, the other options are focused on different areas. Quantifying sales metrics pertains to numerical analysis of sales performance, improving data storage efficiency is related to optimizing database systems or storage solutions, and analyzing numerical data patterns deals with statistical methods rather than emotional insights. Hence, the focus of sentiment analysis is specifically geared towards understanding sentiments in textual data, making its purpose distinct and vital for interpretation of human emotions in communication.