Choosing a Provider

The AI SDK supports dozens of model providers through first-party, OpenAI-compatible, and community packages.

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import { generateText } from 'ai';
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const { text } = await generateText({
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  model: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5",
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  prompt: 'What is love?',
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});

AI Gateway

The Vercel AI Gateway is the fastest way to get started with the AI SDK. Access models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and other providers with a single API key.

Add your API key to your environment:

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AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

The AI Gateway is the default global provider, so you can access models using a simple string:

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import { generateText } from 'ai';
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const { text } = await generateText({
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  model: 'anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5',
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  prompt: 'What is love?',
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});

You can also explicitly import and use the gateway provider:

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// Option 1: Import from 'ai' package (included by default)
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import { gateway } from 'ai';
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model: gateway('anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5');
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// Option 2: Install and import from '@ai-sdk/gateway' package
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import { gateway } from '@ai-sdk/gateway';
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model: gateway('anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5');

Using Dedicated Providers

You can also use first-party, OpenAI-compatible, and community provider packages directly. Install the package and create a provider instance. For example, to use Anthropic:

pnpm add @ai-sdk/anthropic@beta

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import { anthropic } from '@ai-sdk/anthropic';
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model: anthropic('claude-sonnet-4-5');

You can change the default global provider so string model references use your preferred provider everywhere in your application. Learn more about provider management.

See available providers for setup instructions for each provider.

Custom Providers

You can build your own provider to integrate any service with the AI SDK. The AI SDK provides a Language Model Specification that ensures compatibility across providers.

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import { generateText } from 'ai';
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import { yourProvider } from 'your-custom-provider';
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const { text } = await generateText({
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  model: yourProvider('your-model-id'),
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  prompt: 'What is love?',
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});

See Writing a Custom Provider for a complete guide.