# Model

Concept · [Building with AI](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/ai)

Also called: AI model, models, AI models, foundation model, machine learning model, ML model

The [trained](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/training) system at the center of an AI product. It takes an input, such as a [prompt](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/prompt), and produces an output. A model is made of numbers learned during training, called [parameters](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/parameters).

**For example:** A [chat app](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/chatbot) and a [coding](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/code) tool look different on screen. Both can send their requests to the same model underneath.

## Connects to (29)

- [LLM](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/llm): Large language model.
- [Training](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/training): Teaching an AI model by showing it a very large number of examples before anyone uses it.
- [Parameters](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/parameters): The values a model learns during training.
- [Weights](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/weights): The numbers inside a model that it learned during training.
- [Inference](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/inference): An AI model producing an answer to a request.
- [Neural network](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/neural-network): A kind of software model made of many layers of simple math units connected by weights, loosely inspired by the brain.
- [Multimodal](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/multimodal): Describes a model that works with more than one type of content, such as text plus images or audio.
- [Fine-tuning](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/fine-tuning): Extra training of an existing model on a smaller, narrower set of examples, so it suits one task or style.
- [Latent space](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/latent-space): The internal map of numbers where a model places the things it reads.
- [Tool use](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/tool-use): A way for a model to ask the software around it to run a defined action, such as a search or a database lookup, and send back the result.
- [Benchmark](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/benchmark): A shared, public test used to score different models on the same tasks so they can be compared.
- [Open source vs open weights](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/open-source-vs-open-weights): Two labels for AI models that people often mix up.
- [Frontier model](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/frontier-model): One of the most capable general-purpose AI models available at a given time.
- [Reasoning model](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/reasoning-model): A model, or a mode of a model, that works through a problem in intermediate steps before it answers.
- [Knowledge cutoff](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/knowledge-cutoff): The date where a model's training data ends.
- [Speech-to-text](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/speech-to-text): Software that turns spoken words into written text.
- [Hugging Face](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/hugging-face): A platform where the machine learning community shares AI models, datasets and demo apps.
- [Harness](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/harness): The software wrapped around an AI model that turns it into a working agent.
- [Model provider](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/model-provider): The company or service that runs an AI model and answers requests to it, usually over the internet through an API.
- [Effort](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/effort): A setting that tells a reasoning model how much thinking to do before it answers.
- [Stateless](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/stateless): Describes something that keeps nothing between uses.
- [Transformer](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/transformer): The design that most modern language models are built on, introduced by Google researchers in 2017.
- [Diffusion model](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/diffusion-model): A kind of AI model that creates images, and sometimes audio or video, by starting from random noise and removing it step by step until a…
- [Distillation](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/distillation): Training a smaller model to copy the outputs of a larger one, so it keeps much of the quality while being cheaper and faster to run.
- [Vertex AI](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/vertex-ai): Google Cloud's platform for building, running and evaluating AI models and agents in a business setting, with access to Gemini and other…
- [Model Garden](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/model-garden): A catalog in Google Cloud's Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, formerly Vertex AI, where teams find and deploy AI models from Google and…
- [Amazon Bedrock](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/amazon-bedrock): An AWS service that gives access to AI models from several companies through one API, inside a company's AWS account.
- [ONNX](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/onnx): An open file format for AI models, so a model trained with one tool can run with another, on servers, phones or in a browser.
- [Google DeepMind](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/google-deepmind): Google's AI research team, formed by combining Google Brain and DeepMind.

Map view: https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/model