---
title: "Forecasting | Grafana Labs"
description: "Machine learning that learns a metric's past pattern and projects its future values for smarter alerting and capacity planning."
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

# Forecasting

[Forecasting](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana-cloud/ai-tools/dynamic-alerting/forecasting/) creates smarter alerting. It learns a metric’s past pattern and projects its future values. When the forecast shows the metric is on track to cross a limit, an alert fires before you actually hit it.

The outcome is:

- Early detection of issues before they become real problems
- Capacity planning based on data instead of guesswork

[![A forecast line projecting a metric past a limit, with an alert firing before the limit is reached](https://grafana.com/docs/learning-hub/is-grafana-cloud-right-for-me/04-platform-wide-tools/03-forecasting/forecast-alert.svg)](https://grafana.com/docs/learning-hub/is-grafana-cloud-right-for-me/04-platform-wide-tools/03-forecasting/forecast-alert.svg "A forecast line projecting a metric past a limit, with an alert firing before the limit is reached")

[Try it out in Grafana Play](https://play.grafana.org/a/grafana-ml-app/metric-forecast)