Free Lesson

Open Models 101: What Are They and How to Use Them

Part of Build Your AI Product Analyst

60 min
Aug 12, 2026 1:00 PM
Virtual (Zoom)

In this video

What you'll learn

Understand what open models are and why they matter

The open-model landscape in plain terms: the families, how you run them, and why the price gap changes the math.

See if open models can power analytics work reliably

Our scorecard from real analytics tasks, open models vs Claude, shows where the threshold sits today.

Swap an open model into your workflow live

Watch us swap Kimi into a working analyst setup in Claude Code and run a real analysis on the spot.

Know when an open model is the right call

The cost math, privacy, and the judgment call: when open models make sense for your analytics work and when they do not

Why this topic matters

The AI model behind your AI analyst is a decision most builders never make on purpose. They default to the biggest name and pay for it on every run. Open models now do analyst-grade work at a fraction of the price and needed privacy, but nobody shows you a fair test on real work. This session is that test: same tasks, head to head, graded on quality, cost, and speed, so you pick with evidence.

You'll learn from

Shane Butler

Shane Butler

Co-founder, AI Analyst Lab

Sravya Madipalli

Sravya Madipalli

Senior DS Leader (Ex-Microsoft)

Hai Guan

Hai Guan

Head of Data at Ontra, Ex-LinkedIn

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