OpenAI Provider

Learn how to use the OpenAI provider for text generation, embeddings, and image generation with the AI SDK.

OpenAI Provider

The OpenAI provider enables you to use OpenAI’s language models, including GPT-4, GPT-5, and o3 models, for text generation, structured outputs, tool calling, and more.

Installation

npm

npm install @ai-sdk/openai

pnpm add @ai-sdk/openai

yarn add @ai-sdk/openai

bun add @ai-sdk/openai

Setup

Get your API key from OpenAI’s platform and set it as an environment variable:

OPENAI_API_KEY=your-api-key

Usage

Basic Text Generation

import { openai } from '@ai-sdk/openai';
import { generateText } from 'ai';

const { text } = await generateText({
  model: openai('gpt-4-turbo'),
  prompt: 'What is the capital of France?',
});

Streaming Responses

import { openai } from '@ai-sdk/openai';
import { streamText } from 'ai';

const result = streamText({
  model: openai('gpt-4-turbo'),
  prompt: 'Write a story about a robot.',
});

for await (const chunk of result.textStream) {
  process.stdout.write(chunk);
}

Structured Output

import { openai } from '@ai-sdk/openai';
import { generateObject } from 'ai';
import { z } from 'zod';

const { object } = await generateObject({
  model: openai('gpt-4-turbo'),
  schema: z.object({
    name: z.string(),
    age: z.number(),
    occupation: z.string(),
  }),
  prompt: 'Generate a person profile.',
});

Configuration

Custom Provider Instance

import { createOpenAI } from '@ai-sdk/openai';

const openai = createOpenAI({
  apiKey: process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY,
  baseURL: 'https://api.openai.com/v1',
  organization: 'your-org-id',
});

Provider Options

• apiKey: Your OpenAI API key (defaults to OPENAI_API_KEY env var)
• baseURL: Custom API endpoint URL
• organization: OpenAI organization ID
• project: OpenAI project ID
• headers: Custom headers for requests

Available Models

Chat Models

• gpt-5 - Latest GPT-5 model
• gpt-4-turbo - GPT-4 Turbo
• gpt-4 - GPT-4
• gpt-3.5-turbo - GPT-3.5 Turbo

Reasoning Models

• o3-mini - Smaller reasoning model
• o3 - Advanced reasoning model

Embeddings

import { openai } from '@ai-sdk/openai';
import { embed } from 'ai';

const { embedding } = await embed({
  model: openai.embedding('text-embedding-3-small'),
  value: 'Hello, world!',
});

Available Models:

• text-embedding-3-small (1536 dimensions)
• text-embedding-3-large (3072 dimensions)
• text-embedding-ada-002 (1536 dimensions)

Image Generation

import { openai } from '@ai-sdk/openai';
import { generateImage } from 'ai';

const { image } = await generateImage({
  model: openai.image('dall-e-3'),
  prompt: 'A futuristic city at sunset',
  size: '1024x1024',
});

Available Models:

• dall-e-3 - Latest DALL-E model
• dall-e-2 - Previous generation

Advanced Features

Tool Calling

import { openai } from '@ai-sdk/openai';
import { generateText } from 'ai';

const result = await generateText({
  model: openai('gpt-4-turbo'),
  tools: {
    weather: {
      description: 'Get the weather for a location',
      parameters: z.object({
        location: z.string(),
      }),
      execute: async ({ location }) => {
        return { temperature: 72, condition: 'sunny' };
      },
    },
  },
  prompt: 'What is the weather in San Francisco?',
});

Vision

import { openai } from '@ai-sdk/openai';
import { generateText } from 'ai';
import fs from 'fs';

const result = await generateText({
  model: openai('gpt-4-vision-preview'),
  messages: [
    {
      role: 'user',
      content: [
        { type: 'text', text: 'What is in this image?' },
        { type: 'image', image: fs.readFileSync('./image.png') },
      ],
    },
  ],
});

Resources

• OpenAI API Documentation
• AI SDK Documentation
• Example Projects