Temperature

A dial for how adventurous the model's word choices are. Low temperature: predictable, consistent, safe. High: varied and creative, but less reliable.

You can't reach this dial yourself in consumer products like ChatGPT or Claude — it's set for you, and sensibly. Developers set it when they build a custom app for you, which is where the choice actually gets made.

Why it matters: for anything factual or repeatable (reports, data extraction), you want it low. For brainstorming, higher. If an AI tool gives wildly different answers to the same question, temperature is a suspect — and it's a question for whoever built the tool, not a setting you've missed.