Video · 8 min · Lesson 1 of 8
What generative AI is
From predicting the next word to an assistant that writes, summarises and analyses.
Transcript
Generative AI is software that produces new content, such as text, images or code, from an instruction. The tools most teams use today are built on large language models (LLMs), trained on huge amounts of text to predict which word is most likely to come next.
That sounds modest, but predicting well at scale is powerful. To continue a sentence convincingly, a model has to pick up grammar, facts, tone and the structure of an argument. This is why the same tool can draft an email, summarise a report and explain a spreadsheet formula.
It also explains the limits. On its own, a model does not check facts and has no built-in sense of truth. It produces the most plausible continuation, which is usually right on common topics and can be confidently wrong on rare or recent ones. Treat it as a fast, capable partner for the first draft, not as an oracle.
Key takeaways
- Language models generate text by predicting the most likely next word.
- Broad training makes one tool useful for drafting, summarising and explaining.
- Plausible is not the same as true, so important facts need checking.