Selecting the right foundational model for your AI product is crucial for optimizing performance, cost, and usability. Here’s a comprehensive guide to help you navigate this decision, considering various benchmarks such as cost, model size, ease of fine-tuning, and specific use cases.
Before you select a foundational model, make sure you have collected and preprocessed a specialized dataset relevant to your use case

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Factors to Consider

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Cost

Cost is a major factor, especially for large-scale deployments. Models like GPT-4-turbo and GPT-3.5-turbo offer cost-effective options without significantly compromising on performance. Generally, more advanced models with higher capabilities tend to be more expensive. Ensure that the cost aligns with your budget and expected usage volume.

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Model Size

Model size impacts both the hardware requirements and the inference speed. Larger models like GPT-4 and GPT-4-1106-preview require substantial computational resources but offer higher accuracy and more sophisticated capabilities. Smaller models, such as Llama-2-7B-32K-Instruct, are more lightweight and can be deployed on less powerful hardware.
As hardware performance accelerates, model size becomes less of a cost and speed burden.

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Ease of Fine-tuning

Fine-tuning allows you to adapt the model to your specific use case, improving accuracy and relevance. Models with robust fine-tuning capabilities, like Mistral-7B-Instruct, are preferable for applications that require specialized knowledge or behavior.

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Specific Use Cases

Certain models are optimized for specific applications such as chatbots, long-context handling, or diverse task execution. Understanding your primary use case can guide you to the most suitable model.

Evaluating models for a production environment?

We’re here to help. Contact us to help walk you through the testing, evaluation, and benchmarking processes for your use case.