Ep 775: Open Source AI 101: Why Local Models, Cheap APIs, and AI Agents Change Everything (Start Here Series Vol 24)

Until a few months ago, open source AI was kinda a hobby project. Now, it's tearing corporate boardrooms apart. Why? Over the past 6ish months, the gap between frontier closed AI and open sourced AI has shrunk to pretty much nothing. And with the surge of always on agents driving open models, their development and release schedule is on pace with the frontier labs. So if your team isn't paying attention to -- and running test cases through -- open AI models, there's a good chance you'll either be overpaying or playing catch up soon. We walk you through the 101 and what you need to know when it comes to open source AI in this Start Here Series special. Newsletter: Sign up for our free daily newsletterMore on this Episode: Episode PageToday's Episode on LinkedIn: Thoughts on this? Join the convo on LinkedIn and connect with other AI leaders.Upcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineupWebsite: YourEverydayAI.comEmail The Show: [email protected] with Jordan on LinkedInTopics Covered in This Episode:Open Source AI vs Closed Models ShiftChinese Model Distillation & Legal ImpactsEnterprise AI Cost Triage StrategiesGoogle Gemma 4 Local Model CapabilitiesFrontier Model Performance Gap Closing24/7 Agentic AI Systems OverviewAPI Pricing War: DeepSeek vs US VendorsLegal Protection Tradeoffs for Open Source AIAI Workflow Triage: Task-Specific ModelsFuture Trends: Local and Specialized LLMsTimestamps:00:00 Introducing the Firefly AI assistant03:33 Open source AI cost benefits09:25 AI model performance differences10:19 Open source model improvements15:28 Advancements in local AI capabilities17:04 Impact of Google's Gemma four22:15 Introducing Adobe's Firefly AI Assistant24:19 Adobe Firefly AI assistant beta launch29:26 Choosing the right AI tools32:00 Shifting workloads to open source33:31 Using open-source and closed models36:47 The future of open modelsKeywords: open source AI, open source models, local AI models, local models, closed source AI, closed models, proprietary AI, proprietary models, AI agents, agentic AI, AI workflow triage, cheap API, AI API costs, model distillation, Chinese open source models, China AI models, US AI models,Send Everyday AI and Jordan a text message. (We can't reply back unless you leave contact info)