Foundation models are large, general-purpose AI models trained on massive amounts of data. They can be adapted to do many different tasks, like writing, coding, or analyzing images with little extra training.
Key points:
Foundation models are the “starting point” for many AI applications, making it easier and faster to build smart, capable systems.
A foundation model is a large, general-purpose AI model trained on massive amounts of data. It serves as a starting point that can be adapted to many tasks like writing, coding, or analyzing images with only a little extra training.
They’re trained once on huge datasets to learn broad patterns. After this pretraining, the same model can be reused and lightly adjusted for new tasks instead of training a new model from scratch.
Because they already understand general patterns in data, small changes are enough to adapt them to different tasks—so one pretrained model can power many use cases.
Reusing a pretrained model avoids the cost of collecting massive datasets and running long training cycles again, making development more efficient.
They power many modern AI tools and products, enabling capabilities such as text generation, code assistance, and image analysis.
They act as a strong starting point, making it easier and faster to build smart, capable systems without beginning from zero each time.