AI in Business
API (Application Programming Interface)
How developers access AI models programmatically — the foundation of every AI product.
Also known as: API
An API (Application Programming Interface) is how developers access AI models programmatically. Instead of going to ChatGPT.com, an API call lets your code send a prompt to GPT-5 and get a response back as data. Every AI product you use is built on AI APIs underneath — Notion AI calls OpenAI; Cursor calls Anthropic; Perplexity calls multiple providers. Pricing is typically per token (input + output, billed per million). Major providers in 2026: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google (Vertex), Mistral, DeepSeek, Groq, xAI, Together, Replicate. Each has its own SDK, pricing model, and rate limits.
