Llama 2: When open AI models became a commercial reality for business
The launch of Meta's language model Llama 2 marked a significant turning point for open AI models in the private sector. By offering open weights with a commercial license, the foundation for legal AI development within corporations was established.
What happened?
On 18 July 2023, Meta announced its language model Llama 2 and made the model weights freely available for both research and commercial use. In contrast to its predecessor Llama 1, which was intended solely for research but leaked onto the internet, Llama 2 was delivered with a formal commercial license agreement. Companies were thus given legal approval to build and launch commercial products based on open weights models.
Key facts
| Lanseringsdatum | 18 juli 2023 |
|---|---|
| Licenstyp | Forskning och kommersiell användning |
| Utvecklare | Meta |
”free for research and commercial use”
Why it matters
The launch of Llama 2 shifted the market for open weights AI from a research phenomenon to a commercial building block for the business world. It laid the foundation for a wave of further developed models and provided organisations with an alternative to proprietary cloud services.
Who is affected?
The model primarily affected software developers, startups, and established tech companies looking to integrate AI functionality into their products without being dependent on closed APIs. Corporate lawyers and product teams were also affected, as they were given a clear framework for using generative AI legally within their operations.
Impact on the EU
Llama 2 was released globally and has been available to both developers and companies within the EU under Meta's user license, provided they meet the license conditions.
What else you should know
Although Meta marketed Llama 2 as an open model, they used their own specific license rather than a strictly OSI-approved open-source license. The license included, among other things, limitations for extremely large services with more than 700 million monthly active users.
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