Foundation Model
A powerful, general-purpose AI model trained on a huge range of text and data — capable of handling many types of tasks, not just one. Claude is a foundation model. So is GPT-4. Think of it like a general-purpose engine that powers many different products. Companies take these pre-built models and customize them for specific uses, rather than building AI from scratch — which would cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
In practice
Salesforce didn't train their Einstein AI from scratch. They took an existing foundation model — a powerful general-purpose AI trained on massive data — and customized it for CRM use cases. Claude is a foundation model: a general capability base that Anthropic built, and that companies build products on top of rather than training from zero.
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