Integration
API Gateway (AI)
An AI API gateway is a proxy layer that sits between internal applications and external AI model APIs, enforcing rate limits, cost controls, authentication, PII redaction, audit logging, and fallback routing across multiple model providers. It is the standard enterprise pattern for managing AI API calls at scale.
Purpose-built AI gateways such as Portkey, LiteLLM, and Azure AI Gateway provide observability, cost attribution per team or product, and model-switching without code changes. A well-configured gateway can reduce AI API spend by 30–50% through caching and routing to cheaper models for simpler tasks.
Related terms
- LLM Integration — LLM integration is the work of embedding a large language model into existing business systems — CRM, ERP, ticketing, document repositories — so that AI capabilities are accessible from the tools employees already use, with proper authentication, audit logging, and data isolation.
- Function Calling — Function calling is the mechanism by which a language model returns a structured request to invoke a developer-defined function rather than a free-form text response.
- AI Governance — AI governance is the system of policies, controls, and accountabilities that determines what AI is allowed to do inside an organization, who approves AI deployments, how AI decisions are audited, and how risk is managed.