Houdini offers a built-in machine learning platform that allows artists and technical directors to train, test, and deploy custom AI models entirely within the software's node network, without needing to write separate training scripts or install external machine learning frameworks. This capability has been progressively expanded across Houdini 20, 20.5, and 21.

The platform supports the full machine learning pipeline inside Houdini: synthetic data generation, data preprocessing, neural network training via TOP (Task Operator) nodes, model export to ONNX format, and inference via ONNX Interface nodes in both geometry (SOP) and image-processing (COP/Copernicus) contexts. Houdini 21 further expanded this with new nodes for linear regression, kernel regression, style transfer training, and OIDN denoiser training. The ONNX inference engine supports GPU acceleration via CUDA, DirectML (Windows), and CoreML (macOS).