ai

The AI SDK is an open‑source TypeScript library that lets you add generative AI capabilities to web and server projects. It is maintained by the team behind Next.js and runs on Vercel's infrastructure. You install it with a single npm command (`npm i ai`) and then import functions such as `generateText`, `generateImage`, `transcribeSpeech`, or `generateVideo` to call a model and receive the result.

The core API works by accepting a plain JavaScript object that specifies the model identifier, a prompt or other input data, and optional parameters. For text generation you pass a `prompt` string; the function returns an object whose `text` property contains the model's response. The site shows an example that calls `generateText` with the model `spacexai/grok-4.7` and a prompt about quantum entanglement, then logs the returned `text`. Image generation follows the same pattern, taking a textual description and returning a URL or binary image data. Speech transcription expects an audio buffer and returns a transcription string, while video generation accepts a description and returns a video file reference. All calls support modern streaming, so the SDK can deliver partial results as they become available without additional parsing code.

The SDK is deliberately framework‑agnostic. It ships a set of hooks that work with React, Next.js, Vue, Svelte, Angular, Solid, and plain Node.js, allowing you to embed AI‑generated content in UI components or server‑side logic. Multi‑provider support means you can switch from one model host to another by changing a single configuration line; the SDK then routes the request through Vercel AI Gateway, which aggregates more than 100 models behind one endpoint. This eliminates the need to manage separate API keys for each provider. For applications that require long‑running reasoning, the `workflow` package adds resumable streams that can survive function timeouts, and the `@vercel/sandbox` package lets you execute agent‑generated code securely at scale.

The toolkit also includes a UI component library called AI Elements, which provides ready‑made chat and generative interfaces that can be dropped into a project with `npx ai-elements`. The AI Playground on the website demonstrates each generation mode, text, image, speech, video, so you can see the expected inputs and outputs before writing code.