September 2025
The rise of small language models
11/09/25 10:32
We're mostly familiar with large language models (LLMs) like chatGPT, Copilot, etc. But increasingly I'm seeing small language models - these are smaller and lighter AIs. They have specific knowledge in a subject area but not a broad knowledge of the world at large. The trade off is general knowledge and deeper reasoning for speed and lower resource needs. Key issue is that they're specialized and more easily "tuned" for specific needs, i.e. project management. AND you can run them on a laptop! Worth thinking about - use the small model for lap top based specific tools such as meeting data, summarizing specialized documents or decision support while continuing to use large models for more complex or abstract problems.