AI Glossary
API (Application Programming Interface)
What is API (Application Programming Interface)?
A set of protocols that allows one software system to communicate with another. In AI contexts, it typically refers to the interface through which developers send prompts to AI models programmatically and receive responses — for example, the OpenAI API or the Anthropic API.
Example in practice
A developer at a legal firm would call the Anthropic API to send a contract text and a summarization prompt, then receive a structured JSON summary that feeds into the firm's document management system.