Writer’s Palmyra X 004 takes the lead in AI function calling, surpassing tech giants

Writer, the full-stack generative AI platform, unveiled its latest large language model (LLM) Palmyra X 004 today, marking a significant advancement in enterprise artificial intelligence. This new frontier model excels in function calling and workflow execution, key capabilities for building practical AI agents and assistants for businesses.

The release of Palmyra X 004 arrives at a crucial juncture in the AI industry. Companies are racing to integrate generative AI into their operations, creating a growing demand for models that can not only process and generate text but also take actions and execute complex workflows.

“We’re enabling AI to execute multiple functions and actions simultaneously, which is crucial for automating complex enterprise workflows,” said Waseem Alshikh, co-founder and CTO of Writer, in an interview with VentureBeat. “With Palmyra X 004, we’re moving from AI assistants that simply provide information to systems that can actually do work.”

Outperforming tech giants: How Palmyra X 004 is raising the bar for AI function calling

Palmyra X 004 distinguishes itself with its exceptional performance on function calling tasks. The model achieved a score of 78.76% on Berkeley’s Tool Calling Leaderboard, surpassing offerings from tech giants like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta by nearly 20%. This benchmark evaluates a model’s ability to select appropriate tools, determine which APIs to call, and successfully execute tasks based on natural language inputs.

The model’s capabilities extend beyond function calling. Palmyra X 004 also ranked in the top 10 on Stanford University’s Holistic Evaluation of Language Models (HELM) benchmark, scoring 86.1% on HELM Lite and 81.3% on HELM MMLU. These scores indicate strong general language understanding and reasoning abilities across a wide range of subjects.

Writer claims to have achieved these results with a model containing only around 150 billion parameters — significantly smaller than some other frontier models rumored to have trillions of parameters. The company attributes this efficiency to its innovative use of synthetic data and a proprietary early stopping mechanism during training.

Alshikh explained, “We’ve found a way to build highly capable models without relying on massive parameter counts or exorbitant training costs. Our model training costs were below a million dollars in GPU time for something above 100 billion parameters. We’re proving that you don’t need hundreds of billions of dollars to compete in the AI race.”

This focus on efficiency could have major implications for the AI industry. As companies grapple with the high costs of deploying and running large language models, Writer’s approach suggests a path to more affordable and accessible enterprise AI solutions.

Breaking barriers: Palmyra X 004’s multilingual and multimodal capabilities

Palmyra X 004 boasts impressive technical specifications. It features a 128,000 token context window, allowing it to process and reason over very long documents or conversations. The model supports multilingual capabilities across 30+ languages and can handle multimodal inputs including text, images, and audio (though image and audio capabilities are still in beta).

Writer offers multiple deployment options for Palmyra X 004, addressing a key concern for many enterprises: data privacy and control. Companies can access the model through Writer’s API, deploy it via cloud providers like AWS SageMaker and Nvidia AI Enterprise, or even host the model on-premises within their own infrastructure.

The release of Palmyra X 004 reflects a broader shift in the AI landscape. While public attention has focused on consumer-facing chatbots and image generators, the real transformative potential of AI lies in its application to complex business processes.

“We’re seeing a transition from using AI for simple tasks like summarizing emails to building complex, multi-step workflows,” Alshikh noted. “Our enterprise customers are looking to create AI agents that can interact with multiple internal systems, access varied data sources, and execute sophisticated business logic.”

This vision of AI as a workflow automation tool aligns with broader industry trends. Gartner predicts that by 2025, 50% of enterprise applications will embed some form of AI functionality. Writer’s focus on function calling and agentic capabilities positions them well to capitalize on this trend.

The future of AI: Writer’s vision for deeper, smarter, and more efficient models

However, challenges remain. As AI systems become more deeply integrated into business processes, issues of reliability, explainability, and governance become paramount. Writer has attempted to address some of these concerns with built-in features like automatic data integration with retrieval augmented generation (RAG) and source transparency.

The company emphasizes the importance of AI safety and control. Palmyra X 004 integrates with Writer’s existing suite of AI guardrails and governance tools, allowing enterprises to set content policies and control the model’s outputs.

Looking ahead, Alshikh hinted at Writer’s future research directions. The company is exploring ways to build even deeper transformer models, potentially with 500-2000 layers, which they believe could lead to significant improvements in reasoning capabilities.

“We’re at an inflection point in AI development,” Alshikh said. “The next frontier isn’t just about making models bigger, but making them smarter and more efficient. We’re focusing on architectural innovations that can deliver better reasoning at lower inference costs.”

As the AI arms race intensifies, Writer’s release of Palmyra X 004 serves as a reminder that innovation isn’t just about raw scale. By focusing on efficiency, ease of deployment, and real-world business applications, the company is charting a distinctive path in the enterprise AI market.

The true test will be in how enterprises adopt and apply this technology. As businesses continue to explore the potential of generative AI, models like Palmyra X 004 could play a crucial role in turning the promise of AI-driven workflow automation into reality.