Revolutionizing AI Adoption in Regulated Industries: Writer's Specialized Language Models

In a groundbreaking move, San Francisco-based AI company Writer has launched two specialized large language models (LLMs) tailored specifically for the healthcare and financial services industries. These models, Palmyra-Med-70b and Palmyra-Fin-70b, are now available as open-source offerings on major AI platforms, potentially reshaping how these highly regulated sectors approach artificial intelligence.

Unlocking the Power of Domain-Specific AI for Regulated Industries

Bridging the Gap in Domain-Specific AI Models

The launch of Writer's specialized models comes at a critical time as industries grapple with the challenge of leveraging AI's potential while navigating complex regulatory environments. Waseem Alshikh, CTO and Co-Founder of Writer, explains that the development of domain-specific models is a significant undertaking, requiring not just engineering expertise but also specialized data and industry-specific knowledge."In general, there are not enough domain-specific models because it's simply [too] hard to build those models," Alshikh said. "Those models require not just engineering, it requires actually a special type of data, a special type of expertise. You will actually have experts help you build those models."

Outperforming Generalized AI Models in Accuracy

Writer's healthcare model, Palmyra-Med-70b, has achieved an impressive average accuracy of 85.9% across all medical benchmarks in zero-shot attempts, surpassing competitors like Med-PaLM-2, which achieved 84% accuracy after six attempts. This performance is a testament to the company's commitment to developing models that are tailored to the specific needs of the healthcare industry."We have our healthcare industry specialist, Ziad, and he's actually the doctor... he actually helped us build this model," Alshikh explained. "By literally running all the tests, we could act with the model. And then we use this interaction as a reward system to the model itself."

Pioneering AI in the Financial Sector

In the financial sector, Writer's Palmyra-Fin-70b model has achieved a groundbreaking milestone – it is the first AI model capable of passing the CFA Level III exam, often considered one of the most challenging tests in the investment management profession."If you look for financial use cases, I think that one of the biggest use case commercial debt and the model doing amazingly," Alshikh said. "The interaction with the financial models were different, because staff actually act as a financial expert by asking the question is how we train the models will not just provisional answer, we'll ask a question back, and then create this customized plan for you."

Embracing Transparency and Safety with Open-Source Approach

In a notable departure from many AI companies' closed-source approaches, Writer has made both the Palmyra-Med-70b and Palmyra-Fin-70b models open-source. This decision aligns with a growing trend in the AI industry, following recent open-source releases from tech giants like Meta and Mistral."We believe open source [will] be the way for [customers] to scale," Alshikh said. "Relying on black boxes in this huge part of your organization is going to be a very, very tough decision."The move towards open-source, domain-specific AI models could address longstanding concerns about AI safety and regulatory compliance in highly regulated industries. "The only way actually to address [AI safety] should be open source, because you cannot just work with a blog post to analyze the answer," Alshikh explained.

Expanding the Horizons of Specialized AI

Writer's focus on developing specialized AI models for regulated industries could give the company an edge in the competitive enterprise AI market. However, the company will face competition from both established tech giants and other AI startups targeting similar markets.Looking ahead, Writer plans to develop more domain-specific models in the future, with Alshikh hinting at upcoming models in the creative domain and the addition of multimodal capabilities to existing models.As the AI industry continues to evolve, Writer's launch of Palmyra-Med-70b and Palmyra-Fin-70b represents a significant development that could reshape how enterprises, particularly in regulated industries, approach AI adoption. By combining domain-specific expertise with an open-source strategy, Writer is paving the way for a future where specialized, transparent AI models become the norm in enterprise applications.