Successes, Challenges and Future Outlook of Multivariate Analysis In HEP

Multivariate techniques using machine learning algorithms have become an integral part in many High Energy Physics data analyses. This article is intended to sketch how this development took place by pointing out a few analyses that pushed forward the exploitation of these powerful analysis techniques. This article does not focus on controversial issues like for example how systematic uncertainties can be dealt with when using such techniques, which have been widely discussed previously by other authors. The main purpose here is to point to the gain in physics reach of the physics experiments due to the adaptation of machine learning techniques and to the challenges the HEP community faces in the light a rapid development in the field of machine learning if we want to make successful use of these powerful selection and reconstruction techniques.