Open-source models.
AI models you can download and run yourself, instead of renting them from a big lab.
What it is.
- Meta (Llama), Mistral, DeepSeek, Alibaba (Qwen), Google (Gemma) and OpenAI all release models anyone can download.
- Most are "open weight": you get the trained model but not the data it learned from. Fully open-source models also describe that data and share the code used to build them.
- You can run them on your own servers or in your own cloud account.
Why it matters to you.
- Your data never has to leave your control, which suits sensitive work.
- They are free to download but not free to run. You pay for the computers and the people to look after them.
- They usually trail the best frontier models, but are more than good enough for many everyday tasks.