AI engineering glossary · Agents tools MCP
What is toolformer?
Toolformer: A research method in which a language model is trained to decide for itself when to call external tools such as a calculator or search engine, and how to use the results, by learning from examples it generated itself. It is an early paper on teaching tool use to models.
Toolformer: an example
The model learns to insert a calculator call when it sees a sum, instead of guessing the number.
Related terms
More Agents tools MCP terms
Where you learn it
Toolformer is part of the AI Engineering Program, which teaches it with notes, a hands-on lab and an exam. The first lesson is free.