{"id":11876,"date":"2026-02-10T10:27:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T18:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/cosmosdb\/?p=11876"},"modified":"2026-03-19T09:45:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T16:45:48","slug":"building-ai-powered-apps-azure-cosmos-db-vercel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/cosmosdb\/building-ai-powered-apps-azure-cosmos-db-vercel\/","title":{"rendered":"Building AI-Powered Apps with Azure Cosmos DB and the Vercel AI SDK"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Vercel AI SDK<\/a> is an open-source TypeScript toolkit that provides the core building blocks for integrating AI into any JavaScript application. It works with 20+ AI providers out of the box\u2014including OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, and more\u2014so you can write your code once and switch providers by changing a single import.<\/p>\n

At its core, the SDK handles streaming (responses appear word-by-word instead of making users wait), tool calling (allowing the AI to invoke your functions, such as querying a database), and multi-step agentic reasoning, where the AI chains multiple tool calls together to answer complex questions.<\/p>\n

It also provides a useChat() React hook that manages the entire chat lifecycle on the frontend, uses Zod schemas for type-safe tool validation, supports structured output so the AI can return typed JSON instead of plain text, and enables generative UI where the AI returns rendered React components. With built-in middleware for logging, caching, and guardrails, the Vercel AI SDK is one of the fastest ways for JavaScript and TypeScript developers to move from prototype to a production-ready AI experience.<\/p>\n

When you pair this powerful Vercel AI SDK with Azure Cosmos DB, a globally distributed, low-latency NoSQL database, you get a compelling combination that allows your AI to query, reason over, and present real-time operational data through natural conversation. In this post, we will walk through building a complete AI-powered product assistant that brings these two technologies together, guided by the Azure Cosmos DB Agent Kit<\/a> and its production best practices.<\/p>\n

Want to skip ahead and dive into the code? The complete working sample including the Azure Cosmos DB service layer includes definitions, streaming API route, and seed script\u00a0 is available on GitHub<\/a>. Clone it, plug in your credentials, and you’ll have a running AI assistant in minutes.<\/p>\n