AI Glossary

Foundation model

What does “Foundation model” mean?

Foundation model: A large model trained on broad, general data so it can be adapted to many different tasks. Instead of building a new model for each job, developers start from a foundation model and steer it with prompts or extra training.

Foundation model visual guide: A large model trained on broad, general data so it can be adapted to many different tasks. Instead of building a new model for each job, developers start from a foundation model and steer it with prompts or extra training.
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What is an example of “Foundation model”?

Many specialized apps for writing, coding or customer support are built on top of the same few foundation models.

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See also

Large language modelTermFine-tuningTermTransfer learningTermModelTerm

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Frontier modelTermMultimodal AITermOpen-weight modelTermGenerative AITermDeep learningTerm