Intelligent Techno relies upon individualistic experimentation rather than on musical characteristics. The range of post-techno styles to emerge in the early 1990s were described variously as art techno, ambient techno, intelligent techno, and electronica. In the United States, the latter term is now used by the music industry as a catchall to describe EDM and its many derivatives.

During the late 1980s, a number of UK based electronic musicians were inspired by the underground dance music of the time and started to explore experimental forms of EDM production. By the early 1990s the music associated with this experimentation had gained prominence with releases on a variety of record labels including Warp Records (1989), Black Dog Productions (1989), R & S Records (1989), Carl Craig's Planet E, Rising High Records (1991), Richard James's Rephlex Records (1991), Kirk Degiorgio's Applied Rhythmic Technology (1991), Eevo Lute Muzique (1991), General Production Recordings (1989), Soma Quality Recordings (1991), Peacefrog Records (1991), and Metamorphic Recordings (1992).

By 1992 Warp Records was marketing the musical output of the artists on its roster using the description electronic listening music, but this was quickly replaced by intelligent techno. In the same period (1992–93), other names were also used, such as armchair techno, ambient techno, and electronica, but all were attempts to describe an emerging offshoot of electronic dance music that was being enjoyed by the "sedentary and stay at home".

Steve Beckett, co-owner of Warp, has said that the electronic music the label was releasing at that point was targeting a post-club, home-listening audience. In 1993 a number of new record labels emerged that were producing intelligent techno geared releases including New Electronica, Mille Plateaux, 100% Pure, and Ferox Records.