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How to Choose the Right LLM for your Application

Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc.

Intermediate content levelIntermediate

From Llama 3, GPT-4o to reasoning models like o3 and DeepSeek-R1

Course outcomes

  • Understand the fundamentals of large language models
  • Explore prompt engineering and different types of LLMs
  • Learn the factors to consider before choosing an LLM for your application

Course description

As organizations increasingly rely on large language models to power their applications, the challenge of choosing the correct one for specific applications becomes critical. "How to Choose the Right LLM for Your Application" demystifies this process, offering a comprehensive guide grounded in industry best practices. Consider an e-commerce platform striving to improve customer service with intelligent, responsive chatbots, or an educational institution looking to create personalized learning experiences with adaptive tutoring systems. Join Jonathan Fernandes to explore considerations ranging from licensing to data privacy and practical examples using your data with Elo ratings.

What you’ll learn and how you can apply it

  • Explore the world of LLMs and prompt engineering
  • Gain knowledge of state-of-the-art LLM literature
  • Learn the application of LLMs in your projects

This live event is for you because...

  • You have intermediate knowledge of neural networks and machine learning.
  • You want to learn how to use LLMs.
  • You want to advance your ML/DL knowledge by learning state-of-the-art methods in natural language understanding and generative AI.

Prerequisites

  • Intermediate knowledge of deep learning
  • Understanding of essential concepts like basic calculus, loss function, model freezing, backpropagation, clustering, activation functions, and some existing language models such as BERT

Recommended preparation:

Recommended follow-up:

Schedule

The time frames are only estimates and may vary according to how the class is progressing.

Fundamentals of large language models (60 minutes)

  • Presentation: Basic concepts of LLMs
  • Presentation: Comparing LLMs using benchmarks
  • Q&A
  • Break

LLM models and providers (60 minutes)

  • Presentation: Models from the top 5 LLM providers
  • Presentation: Reasoning models
  • Presentation: Trade-offs to consider when selecting LLMs
  • Q&A
  • Break

Benchmarking LLMs (55 minutes)

  • Presentation: Choosing the appropriate LLM for your use case; common benchmarks and frameworks (HELM, Elo ratings, etc.)
  • Hands-on exercises: Determine best LLM based on user ratings data
  • Q&A

Your Instructor

Jonathan Fernandes

Jonathan Fernandes works with large language models every day, and he did so long before ChatGPT came on the scene. He focuses primarily on LLMs in production to solve business problems across a variety of domains including finance, health, manufacturing, legal, and education. Previously, he worked for LLM-provider startups including Cohere. Jonathan has taught over 250,000 people about LLMs and how to use them.

Skill covered

Large Language Models (LLMs)