🤖 What Are LLMs, Really?
Large Language Models are changing how we work, but most people still think they’re just fancy autocorrect. They’re so much more than that.
Last Saturday afternoon, I’m lounging by the pool with my laptop balanced on my knees…
☀️ The sun’s beating down, kids are tanning (this is what my life looks like now with tween & teen girls), and I’m finishing a client proposal.
I got a call from a non-tech friend.
When I tell him what I’m working on & that I’m using AI to help write it, there was this long pause.
You know the one.
Half curious, half skeptical. Full unsure what to say.
“So it just… writes for you?” he asks.
Not exactly.
Think of Large Language Models as that friend who’s read every book in the library, speaks multiple languages, and somehow remembers every conversation they’ve ever had.
Except this friend lives in your computer (or in a cloud somewhere out there) and works faster than you do.
These AI systems have studied trillions of words from books, websites, and documents.
They’ve learned how we humans put sentences together, how ideas connect, and even how different industries talk about their work.
They don’t just memorize.
They understand context and can create new content that sounds natural and fits your specific needs.
⛱️ Back to the Pool
I had three problems staring at me from my laptop screen:
- A 42-page deep-research overview full of industry jargon & stats
- Three voice recordings from different team meetings
- A photo of a messy brainstorming session
Normally, turning this chaos into a clean proposal would take me all weekend.
Instead, I uploaded everything to a Large Language Model (LLM) and asked it to organize the main points into the outline I needed.
Less than a minute later…
While the kids had now moved to doing cannonballs, I had a structured document that captured every important idea. It even suggested connections between points I hadn’t noticed.
I spent a few minutes longer polishing it up and BOOM.
Done before dinner.
💡 What You Need to Know Right Now
AI models learn by reading millions of documents, all at once.
Like how you learned to speak, just… supercharged. They process more text in an hour than you could in a lifetime.
Size matters, but not how you think. 😎
Models have up to a trillion parameters (like brain cells), but bigger doesn’t always mean better for your needs.
They can write, code, and translate but they still make mistakes.
That’s why we don’t publish right from AI (at least yet).
🔢 The Numbers That Matter
- The cost of using these tools dropped 70% in the last year. What used to be expensive enterprise software is now affordable for small businesses.
- Over 40 major AI models are available today, with specialized versions for different industries.
- New regulations are coming. The EU and several U.S. states now require businesses to disclose when content is AI-generated.
👉 If you want to get started but are not sure how, here’s your roadmap…
- Pick one thing that eats up your time every week.
- Plug a small sample into an AI tool 🔗
- Ask it to summarize, rewrite, or draft a template.
- Then compare it to your usual workflow.
Chances are you’ll save hours.
But the real win?
You’ll start seeing where this can actually fit in your day.
💭 Questions Worth Asking
As these tools become as common as spell-check, some big questions emerge:
- What happens when AI assistance costs pennies instead of dollars? Which parts of your business would transform first?
- How will you check AI output before it reaches customers? What’s your plan to catch bias or errors?
- Could a smaller, specialized model trained on your company’s data outperform the giant generalist models?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on these.
Your real-world experiences often shape what I cover in future newsletters.
Like next week, we’re going to cover all things AI Sustainability and the angle no one’s talking about!
Speaking of your experience…
🚀 What Our Community Is Building
I launched this newsletter after realizing that most AI chatter was just noise, tweets with no proof, gurus with no shipping record.
What I craved (and couldn’t find) was a signal-rich space where entrepreneurs and leaders could see how real people are turning the latest AI trends into live products.
Where they can share the exact tools that moved the needle, and push each other to go further.
Join me and you’ll step into monthly live office hours where I stay until every roadblock is solved, daily micro-demos that surface the only tools worth testing, and an open brain trust of founders, devs, marketers, and nonprofit leaders who trade templates, shortcuts, and collaboration invites in real time.
If this sounds interesting to you and you haven’t joined us yet, come on over to join CTRL + ALT + BUILD 🔗
See you inside.
