Fine-tuning
Fine-tuning is further training of a pre-trained AI model on a smaller, focused dataset to adjust its behavior, style or skill at a specific task. It changes the model's internal weights. It is slower and more expensive to update than retrieval, and is better at teaching a style or format than at adding facts.
Example
A company fine-tunes a model on 10,000 past support replies so it writes in the team's tone and format.
Why it matters for a website chatbot
Many people assume a chatbot must be fine-tuned on their data. For answering from a website, retrieval is usually better: updates take minutes and answers can cite sources. ChatBento doesn't fine-tune; it retrieves from your content, so retraining after an edit is quick.
See it in practice: Docs and help-center search
Related terms
- Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is a technique in which an AI system first retrieves relevant passages from a chosen set of documents, then gives them to a language model to write its answer. It lets the model answer from current, specific information it was never trained on, and makes answers easier to check.
- Large language model (LLM)A large language model (LLM) is an AI model trained on very large amounts of text to predict and generate language. It can answer questions, summarize, translate and write. Its general knowledge comes from training data with a cutoff date, so it needs supplied documents to answer accurately about a specific business.
- EmbeddingsEmbeddings are lists of numbers that represent the meaning of a piece of text, image or other data, produced by a machine-learning model. Texts with similar meanings get similar numbers, even when they share no words, which lets software compare meaning mathematically for search, recommendations and grouping.
- Knowledge baseA knowledge base is an organized collection of information, such as help articles, policies, product details and answers to common questions, that people or software can search. In AI chatbots, the knowledge base is the content the chatbot is allowed to answer from, usually built from a company's website, documents and written Q&As.