Does Databricks AutoML support multi-target/multi-output classification?

spearitchmeta — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 15:16:52 GMT

Hi Databricks community,

I'm working on a classification problem where I need to predict 50 different target columns simultaneously using the same input features (X), commonly known as multi-target or multi-output classification.

My question: Does Databricks AutoML currently support multi-target classification, or is it limited to single-target prediction? (whether using WebUI or API)

Background:

I have a dataset with the same feature set (X) that needs to predict multiple binary/categorical outcomes (50 Y columns)
In traditional ML frameworks like scikit-learn, this is handled using MultiOutputClassifier or algorithms that natively support multiple outputs
The AutoML UI and API documentation seems to only reference selecting a single "prediction target" column

Current workarounds I'm considering:

Running 50 separate AutoML experiments (one per target)
Using Databricks ML Runtime directly with scikit-learn's MultiOutputClassifier

Re: Does Databricks AutoML support multi-target/multi-output classification?

spearitchmeta — Wed, 27 Aug 2025 14:09:35 GMT

Long story short after lots of research: No.. Sadly this is not possible. Yet the two mentioned options could be considered as workaround

Re: Does Databricks AutoML support multi-target/multi-output classification?

szymon_dybczak — Wed, 27 Aug 2025 15:16:14 GMT

Thanks for sharing the outcome of your research @spearitchmeta. The knowledge that something is not possible is also really valuable 🙂

topic Re: Does Databricks AutoML support multi-target/multi-output classification? in Machine Learning

Does Databricks AutoML support multi-target/multi-output classification?

Re: Does Databricks AutoML support multi-target/multi-output classification?

Re: Does Databricks AutoML support multi-target/multi-output classification?