---
title: "Small language model (SLM)"
description: "A language model small enough to run close to the user, for example on a phone."
canonical: https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/small-language-model-slm
author: "Jorge García Aibar"
license: "CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)"
doi: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197
version: "0.5.0"
updated: 2026-09-24
---

# Small language model (SLM)

A language model small enough to run close to the user, for example on a phone [1]. Its controls must ship with it: guardrails on the device, a version inventory across the fleet and a kill switch delivered as a remote flag or app update.

- Developed in: [ch. 11, LLMs and SLMs](https://aigovernanceengineer.com/bok/ai-defined#llms-and-slms)
- Chapters: [ch. 11, AI Defined](https://aigovernanceengineer.com/bok/ai-defined)
- Contrast with: [Large language model (LLM)](https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/large-language-model-llm)
- In the glossary chapter: https://aigovernanceengineer.com/bok/glossary#t-small-language-model-slm

## Sources

[1] Phi-3 Technical Report: A Highly Capable Language Model Locally on Your Phone (3.8-billion-parameter model deployable on a phone; arXiv 2404.14219). Abdin et al. (Microsoft). 2024-04-22. https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.14219 (verified: primary)