Training Custom AI Models via Fine-Tuning
Hosted by [HOST NAME]
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
1:00 PM–4:00 PM ET
About
This talk is a practical introduction to creating a custom AI model through fine-tuning. Rather than training a model from scratch, I will show how you can start with an existing open-weight model and specialize it to behave in a specific, repeatable way. The focus will be on the complete workflow: choosing a base model, defining the behavior you want to change, creating synthetic training data, establishing evaluation benchmarks, and fine-tuning with techniques such as LoRA and QLoRA.
I will also cover the parts of the process that are easy to overlook, including quantization, controlling variables during evaluation, checking for catastrophic forgetting, and measuring whether the fine-tuned model actually improved instead of simply assuming that it did. The goal is to demystify fine-tuning and show, step by step, how an open model can be turned into a specialized model that can be evaluated, deployed, and used in a real application.
Speakers
- Jesse WaitesSpeaker
Host
[HOST NAME]
Location
- Fine Tuning
- ML Engineering
- Open Models
- Engineers
- Researchers