What Is Vercel's AI SDK?

Building AI-powered apps usually means working with APIs like OpenAI's. If you decide to use a different provider, such as Anthropic, you will notice that their APIs are not the same. Each provider has different approaches to things like streaming, structured outputs, or tool calling. This often results in additional code to make everything compatible when switching models.

Vercel's AI SDK is created to make this process easier. It acts as a library that handles communication between your application and the large language models. This SDK allows you to switch between providers easily, using the same interface. It includes helpful tools to stream text, work with structured outputs, call various tools, and set up agent functions without extra effort.

Seamless switching between LLM providers using Vercel's AI SDK
(see the generated image above)

Why Consider Using Vercel's AI SDK

• Unified API for accessing LLMs from multiple providers

• Easy to swap models with minimal code changes

• Includes utilities for streaming text, working with structured data, and calling tools

• Supports agent-like flows for more advanced use cases

Do You Need to Deploy on Vercel?

You do not have to deploy your applications on Vercel to use this SDK. It is open source, free, and maintained by Vercel. You can use it with any infrastructure or platform.

Main Components of Vercel's AI SDK

• The AI SDK Core, used for backend development (Node, Deno, Bun, and more)

• The AI SDK UI, a set of front-end hooks and components for connecting your app's UI with the backend

• The AI SDK RSC framework, aimed at builders who use React Server Components

Main components of Vercel's AI SDK: Core, UI, and RSC Framework

Getting Started and Installation

To use the SDK, install the core package with your package manager

bashpnpm add ai
# or use npm or yarn if you prefer

Basic Usage

Import the primary helpers from the package in your JavaScript code:

javascriptimport {
  generateText,
  streamText,
  generateObject,
  streamObject,
} from "ai";

Adding LLM Provider Integrations

If you want to use OpenAI, add its integration:

bashpnpm add @ai-sdk/openai

Set up the OpenAI provider in your app:

javascriptimport { openai } from "@ai-sdk/openai";

const model = openai("gpt-4");

Now you can use the model with the helpers above to generate or stream text and work with structured data.

Conclusion

Vercel's AI SDK makes it much more convenient for developers to build and upgrade AI applications. With a unified API and tools for provider switching, streaming, structured outputs, and tool invocation, it is a practical solution for projects that need flexibility and future-ready architecture.

1. https://www.aihero.dev/what-is-the-ai-sdk