Fine-Tuning
Adjusting a pre-trained model on specialized data to improve performance for specific tasks.
Why it matters
General models know a lot but aren't experts. Fine-tuning creates a specialist model for your domain.
In practice
Rather than fine-tuning, we prefer prompt engineering and RAG — similar results without the cost of training custom models.
Related terms
LLM (Large Language Model)
A large language model like Claude, GPT, or Gemini. The "brain" that understands and generates language.
Few-Shot Learning
A model's ability to learn new tasks from just a few examples without retraining.
Knowledge Distillation
Compressing a larger model's behavior into a smaller model to reduce cost and latency.
RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
A method where AI retrieves relevant information from external sources before generating a response.