Getting Frontier Model Apis

🎯 What We will be doing

We explored Frontier LLMs through their chat interfaces and got our first taste of the OpenAI API. Lets now go further:

✅ Connecting to multiple AI providers via APIs
✅ Understanding API abstraction layers and routers
✅ Building apps that talk to multiple models
✅ Eventually, making models talk to each other

🚀 Today's Mission

We're now going to try asking a bunch of models some questions!
This is totally optional. If you have keys to Anthropic, Gemini or others, then you can add them in.
If you'd rather not spend the extra, then Just you your existing OpenAi key

For OpenAI, visit https://openai.com/api/
For Anthropic, visit https://console.anthropic.com/
For Google, visit https://aistudio.google.com/
For DeepSeek, visit https://platform.deepseek.com/
For Groq, visit https://console.groq.com/
For Grok, visit https://console.x.ai/

For most providers, you'll need to do two things: visit their billing page to add a minimum top-up, then head to their API keys page to generate and copy your key.

💡 Gemini, Groq, and OpenRouter may offer free tiers — so you might not need to add billing at all for those.

🤔 Do You Need All These API Keys?

No. Pick whichever option works for you:

Option	What You Need
🥉 Minimal	Just OpenAI (already set up from Week 1)
🏠 Local	Ollama — no API costs at all
🪙 Budget-friendly	OpenRouter — one key for many models
🔑 Full setup	Individual keys for each provider

🧠 Why Bother with Multiple APIs?

In real-world AI engineering, you'll regularly need to:

🏆 Pick the best model for a task
💸 Route to the cheapest option
⚡ Prioritize the fastest response
🔀 Switch models dynamically without rewriting code

Different providers genuinely excel at different things — knowing your way around more than one is a valuable skill.

🔑 Provider Quick Reference

Provider	Model Family	Notable For	Free Tier?
OpenAI	GPT, o-series	Reasoning, vision	❌
Anthropic	Claude	Long context, coding, writing	❌
Google AI Studio	Gemini	Multimodal	✅
DeepSeek	DeepSeek	Coding, low cost	Small top-up
Groq	Open-source models	Ultra-fast inference	✅
xAI	Grok	X ecosystem integration	Varies

⚠️ Groq ≠ Grok — Groq is a fast inference platform. Grok is xAI's model. Easy to mix up!

🌐 OpenRouter — One Key to Rule Them All

openrouter.ai is a unified gateway that sits in front of all major providers:

Your App
    │
    ▼
OpenRouter
    ├──▶ GPT
    ├──▶ Claude
    ├──▶ Gemini
    ├──▶ DeepSeek
    └──▶ Many more...

Benefits:

🧾 Single billing account
🔑 One API key
🔀 Switch models by changing just the model name
🧪 Great for rapid prototyping and comparison

📁 Storing API Keys Safely

❌ Never do this:

api_key = "sk-my-secret-key"

✅ Always use a `.env` file:

OPENAI_API_KEY=xxxx
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=xxxx
GOOGLE_API_KEY=xxxx
DEEPSEEK_API_KEY=xxxx
GROQ_API_KEY=xxxx
GROK_API_KEY=xxxx
OPENROUTER_API_KEY=xxxx