Overview
Supervised learning algorithms are commonly described as performing the task of searching through a hypothesis space to find a suitable hypothesis that will make good predictions with a particular problem. Even if the hypothesis space contains hypotheses that are very well-suited for a particular problem, it may be very difficult to find a good one. Ensembles combine multiple hypotheses to form a (hopefully) better hypothesis. In other words, an ensemble is a technique for combining many weak learners in an attempt to produce a strong learner. The term ensemble is usually reserved for methods that generate multiple hypotheses using the same base learner. The broader term of multiple classifier systems also covers hybridization of hypotheses that are not induced by the same base learner.
Evaluating the prediction of an ensemble typically requires more computation than evaluating the prediction of a single model, so ensembles may be thought of as a way to compensate for poor learning algorithms by performing a lot of extra computation. Fast algorithms such as decision trees are commonly used with ensembles (for example Random Forest), although slower algorithms can benefit from ensemble techniques as well.
Read more about this topic: Ensemble Learning