Cohere AI releases Command R to focus on RAG

Another day, another model. Cohere's new release, Command-R, is built for serious business, focusing on RAG (think supercharging your internal knowledge for customer service) and a neat "Tool Use" feature for automating crazy complex workflows.

What’s going on here?

Cohere releases a new model that beats Open AI’s GPT 3.5

What does that mean?

Command-R is built for serious tasks like retrieval augmented generation (RAG) – think accessing your private data to power smarter applications. It also plays nice with Cohere's other models and external tools, meaning you can move from cool experiments to actual products faster.

Cohere claims it beats the competition, with enterprise users finding Command-R's responses almost 2x better than Mixtral. It also edges out OpenAI's GPT-3.5 Turbo. That's impressive, and the pricing makes it even sweeter: just $0.5/$1.5 for a million input/output tokens.

You can start using it right now on Cohere's API, and it'll be hitting major cloud platforms soon. Plus, Cohere released the model weights for research and non-commercial use. They're not chasing every single commercial use case, but the CEO's open to discussing licensing if it's a fit.

Why should I care?

For most business use cases, LLMs fight in two weight classes. There's the big ring where the heavyweight champs like GPT-4 flex their muscles. Then there's the smaller, scrappier ring where models like GPT-3.5 duke it out—they're not the strongest, but with the right tools, they pack a punch. And importantly, they're a lot more affordable than the big guys.

Command-R is stepping into that smaller ring—same cost, similar size—but it's bringing its own gear. Think of it as the boxer who knows how to use the speed bag, the punching bag, AND can strategize with their coach (that's the RAG and tool use stuff).

Bottom line: if you want to build real AI applications without breaking the bank (basically every enterprise), Command-R just became a serious contender.