Orchestration
What is a model provider?
A model provider is the API that serves an embedding, a transcription, a vision model, or a chat model a column can call.
Updated · Part of What is an AI function?
How it works
- You pick a model and pass a key.
- A computed column calls it.
- The output is stored on the row, so you can swap the model by changing the expression.
What it is not
It is not the database that stores the result, and it is not the only provider you are allowed to call.
model provider: this, and the thing it is confused with
| This | Not this | |
|---|---|---|
| Sells | Model calls | Table storage |
| Swap | Change the expression | Move the bytes |
| Examples | Hosted chat, speech, and image models | The catalog |
Where Pixeltable fits
Pixeltable calls providers from computed columns. OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Groq, Mistral, Together, Fireworks, Bedrock, Hugging Face, and Replicate are functions, not a second database.
Questions
- How does model provider work?
- You pick a model and pass a key. A computed column calls it. The output is stored on the row, so you can swap the model by changing the expression.
- What is model provider often confused with?
- It is not the database that stores the result, and it is not the only provider you are allowed to call.