LLM stands for Large Language Model. It is an artificial intelligence system trained on massive amounts of text data to understand and generate human language. Common examples include ChatGPT, GPT-4, and Claude.

What are LLMs used for in tech companies?

LLMs are used for many purposes: building chatbots and customer support systems, generating code and documentation, translating text, summarizing long documents, analyzing sentiment, and automating routine tasks. Many modern applications integrate LLMs to add AI capabilities.

What is the difference between an LLM and ChatGPT?

An LLM is a general category of large language models. ChatGPT is a specific LLM product made by OpenAI. Think of it like this: all ChatGPTs are LLMs, but not all LLMs are ChatGPT. Other LLMs include Claude (Anthropic), Llama (Meta), and Gemini (Google).

What does 'fine-tuning an LLM' mean?

Fine-tuning means taking an existing LLM and training it further on your own specialized data to improve its performance on specific tasks. For example, you might fine-tune an LLM on medical documents to make it better at healthcare tasks.

Is LLM formal or informal?

LLM is neutral in formality. It is appropriate to use in formal business meetings, technical presentations, code reviews, and casual team conversations. It is the standard term across the tech industry.

LLM meaning in tech — Speak Tech English

Q: Can you use LLM as a verb?

No. LLM is a noun and should not be used as a verb. Do not say 'to LLM something.' Instead, say 'to use an LLM,' 'to deploy an LLM,' or 'to integrate an LLM.'

Commonness	5/5
Versatility	4/5
Formality	CasualFormalNeutral
Spoken ↔ Written	SpokenWrittenBoth
Directness ↔ Diplomatic	DirectDiplomaticDirect
Region	US and UK

Say it like this

✓We are using an LLM from OpenAI

✓Which LLM should we choose for this project?

✓The LLM performed well on our benchmark tests

✓We need to fine-tune the LLM with our domain data

Real examples

in a standup

"We completed the integration of the LLM API yesterday and are running initial tests."

in a team meeting

"We should compare the latency and accuracy of different LLMs before making a decision."

in a code review

"The prompt engineering here is good, but we might need to adjust it based on how the LLM responds."

in a project proposal

"Building our feature on top of an existing LLM will reduce development time significantly."

Don't say this

Handle with care. LLM is an acronym and should not be used as a verb. Do not say 'to LLM something' — instead say 'to use an LLM' or 'to deploy an LLM'. Also avoid confusing LLM (Large Language Model) with LLaMA or other specific model names.

✕We need to LLM this data to get better results.

✓We need to use an LLM to process this data and get better results.— LLM is a noun, not a verb. You cannot 'LLM' something. You must say 'use an LLM,' 'deploy an LLM,' or 'run an LLM.'

✕The LLMs are all the same, so it does not matter which one we pick.

✓LLMs have different strengths and weaknesses, so we should evaluate them based on our specific use case.— Different LLMs have different performance characteristics, training data, and specialized capabilities.

✕An LLM is just a chatbot.

✓An LLM is a language model that powers many applications, including chatbots, but it has many other uses like code generation and data analysis.— LLMs are more versatile than just chatbots. Confusing the tool with one specific application limits understanding of its real value.

✕Our LLM will work perfectly without any adjustments.

✓We need to fine-tune and prompt-engineer the LLM to work well for our specific domain.— Off-the-shelf LLMs require customization and testing for specific business needs. They do not work perfectly out of the box.

Other forms

noun

LLM

"We selected the LLM that best fits our requirements."

noun

LLMs

"Several LLMs are available on the market today."

adjective

LLM-based

"Our LLM-based chatbot handles customer inquiries effectively."

Often used with

open-source LLMAn LLM that is publicly available and free to use, like Llama or Mistral

fine-tune an LLMTo train an existing LLM on your own data to improve performance on specific tasks

deploy an LLMTo put an LLM into production so it can serve real user requests

LLM providerA company or service that offers LLM access, like OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google

prompt an LLMTo give an LLM input text (a prompt) to generate a response

LLM performanceHow well an LLM works, measured by speed, accuracy, or quality of outputs

LLM costThe expense of using or running an LLM, typically calculated per token or request

Similar words

language modelA broader term; LLM is specifically a large language model with billions of parameters

generative AI modelA general term for AI that creates content; LLM is a specific type focused on language

foundation modelA large pretrained model that can be adapted for many tasks; LLM is one type of foundation model

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Practice

Try it

4 quick exercises

Complete the sentence

1. Our product team decided to _______ OpenAI's GPT-4 model to power the new feature.

Spot the mistake

2. Which sentence uses LLM incorrectly?

We need to LLM the customer feedback to extract insights.We should evaluate different LLMs before making a decision.The LLM-based system reduced our support costs by 30 percent.We fine-tuned the LLM with our proprietary data.

Pick the most natural phrasing

3. Your manager asks what technology you will use for the new project. Which response sounds most professional?

We will use ChatGPT to LLM the requests.We will integrate an LLM to handle customer queries.We will LLM everything with the best AI.We will make the LLM do the work for us.

Rewrite naturally

4. Rewrite this in natural tech English: 'We looked at many artificial language models and picked one to teach with our company data so it works better for what we need.'

Questions

Quick poll

Have you said "llm" in a standup this week?

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