OpenAI Ultrafast mode now available on AI Gateway
- Source
- vercel.com
- Author
- Kevin Dawkins
- Date
Context
Vercel's AI Gateway, a service that lets developers call many AI models through one API, now passes through OpenAI's Ultrafast service tier for GPT-6 Astra. In its changelog, Vercel says the tier gives faster output for interactive apps and quick coding loops, and a developer requests it with a service tier option on the openai/gpt-6-astra model.
The trade is price and availability. Vercel says Ultrafast requests are billed at six times the standard per- rate, that the tier covers US and global processing, and that requests pinned to unsupported regions such as the EU run at the standard tier instead. When a request falls back, billing follows the tier actually served, and standard remains the default if no tier is named. The changelog does not give speed measurements; OpenAI's own launch is covered in a separate Intel item.
- AI Gateway exposes OpenAI's Ultrafast service tier for GPT-6 Astra. You opt in per request with the openai provider option serviceTier: 'ultrafast'; standard processing remains the default when no tier is specified.
- Ultrafast requests are billed at 6x the standard per-token rate, while a request that falls back to another tier is billed at the rate of the tier actually served.
- Ultrafast supports US and global processing only. Requests pinned to unsupported regions such as the EU run at the standard (default) tier instead.
- For workflows with frequent tool calls, OpenAI recommends using the Responses API over a persistent WebSocket connection to reduce overhead between turns.
- token — The chunk of text a model reads and writes in — roughly three-quarters of a word — and the unit AI usage is billed in.
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