Predictive analytics, prescriptive analytics and the fairly recent offshoot– discovery analytics– can all support business decision making. Although the three tools are very similar in that they build off the same analytic foundation, the types of decisions they support are quite different. This one picture explains the differences between the three methods.
References
Predictive vs. Prescriptive Analytics: What’s the Difference?
Business Solutions & Big Data: Descriptive Analytics
Differences Between Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics
Self driving car image: Grendelkhan [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]