Open-Source AI
Also called: Open Source AI
Open-source AI refers to models, libraries and frameworks whose underlying source code, architecture and training scripts are made publicly available for unrestricted commercial use, modification and distribution. Open-source releases lower deployment costs, prevent single-vendor lock-in and let engineering teams run models on their own servers rather than through a third party's API.
In practice
The choice between open source and a hosted API is a trade between control and convenience: self-hosting buys vendor independence and keeps data inside your own estate, but you then own the security, the updates and the running cost. Check what "open" covers for a specific release, because publishing the trained model is not the same as publishing the code and data behind it.