How to Use Perplexity with the Vercel AI SDK — Perplexity Provider Guide

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to use Perplexity models with the Vercel AI SDK through Puter's OpenAI-compatible provider endpoint. No Perplexity API key needed — just your Puter auth token.

About Perplexity

Perplexity AI specializes in AI-powered search and answer generation. Their Sonar models combine large language model capabilities with real-time web search, delivering responses grounded in current information with inline citations. The Sonar family includes standard Sonar for balanced performance and Sonar Pro for more complex research tasks. Through Puter, you can access Perplexity models via the Vercel AI SDK without needing a separate Perplexity API key.

Prerequisites

• A Puter account
• Your Puter auth token, go to puter.com/dashboard and click Copy to get your auth token

• Node.js installed on your machine

Setup

Install the Vercel AI SDK and the OpenAI provider:

npm install ai @ai-sdk/openai

Puter works as an OpenAI-compatible provider, so you use @ai-sdk/openai to connect. Configure it with Puter's base URL and your auth token:

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

const puter = createOpenAI({
  baseURL: 'https://api.puter.com/puterai/openai/v1/',
  apiKey: 'YOUR_PUTER_AUTH_TOKEN',
});

Replace YOUR_PUTER_AUTH_TOKEN with the auth token you copied from your Puter dashboard. That's all you need. No Perplexity API key required.

Basic Text Generation

Here's a simple text generation call using Sonar:

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

const puter = createOpenAI({
  baseURL: 'https://api.puter.com/puterai/openai/v1/',
  apiKey: 'YOUR_PUTER_AUTH_TOKEN',
});

const { text } = await generateText({
  model: puter.chat('perplexity/sonar'),
  prompt: 'What is the capital of France?',
});

console.log(text);

The code is identical to what you'd write for any OpenAI provider. The only difference is the base URL and the model string.

Streaming

For longer responses, use streamText to get results in real-time:

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

const puter = createOpenAI({
  baseURL: 'https://api.puter.com/puterai/openai/v1/',
  apiKey: 'YOUR_PUTER_AUTH_TOKEN',
});

const result = streamText({
  model: puter.chat('perplexity/sonar'),
  prompt: 'Write a short story about a robot learning to paint.',
});

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

Use streamText instead of generateText and iterate over result.textStream to get text chunks as they arrive.

Why Use Puter?

You could install @ai-sdk/perplexity and use Perplexity's API key directly. Here's why Puter is a simpler option:

• One API key for everything — no need to sign up for separate Perplexity, Anthropic, or OpenAI accounts. Your Puter auth token covers all providers.
• One setup for all models — the same Puter config works for Claude, GPT, Gemini, Llama, and 400+ other models. Just change the model string.
• No extra packages — without Puter, each AI provider needs its own SDK package and API key. With Puter, everything goes through a single @ai-sdk/openai setup.

Conclusion

You now have the Perplexity provider set up through the Vercel AI SDK via Puter — no API key needed. Swap the model string to use any Perplexity model, from the fast Sonar to the powerful Sonar Pro, or any of the hundreds of other AI models available through Puter.

Related

• How to Use Vercel AI SDK with Puter
• Free, Unlimited Perplexity AI API
• Perplexity AI Models on Puter
• Access Mistral Using Vercel AI SDK
• Access Cohere Using Vercel AI SDK
• Supported AI Models