How to Get Started With AI Models in Under 5 Minutes

Before you start

Good news: there's almost nothing to set up. AI Models is designed so you can go from "curious" to "running" without an engineering project. Here's the exact path.

Step 1 — Open the door (zero cost)

Head to the AI Models page and hit Start. There's no contract and no upfront cost — zero upfront · pay-as-you-scale. This is the single biggest reason teams stall on AI adoption, and AI Models removes it entirely.

Step 2 — Connect what you already use

AI Models plugs into your existing stack with one-click integrations. No migration nightmares, no rip-and-replace. Most teams are live in their workflow in under two minutes.

Step 3 — Put it to work

Pick your first job. The highest-leverage starting points we see:

1. Power production apps with frontier models
2. Fine-tune domain-specific assistants
3. Replace a costly model vendor with the source
4. Build multimodal experiences from one API

Step 4 — Lean on the features that move the needle

• Foundation & Frontier Models. Access the original LLM lineage plus the latest frontier checkpoints, all under one API.
• Custom Fine-Tuning. Adapt any model to your domain with your data — securely, with no leakage into shared weights.
• Multimodal. Text, vision, audio, and structured output from a single, consistent interface.
• Proprietary Architecture. The exact architectural innovations the rest of the field reverse-engineered, available natively.

Step 5 — Scale as you win

Because the model is a partnership, you scale at your own pace and Scale shares in the upside. Start small, prove value, then expand — the pricing rewards growth instead of punishing it.

Common questions

How is this different from other model APIs? It's the original architecture the industry copied — accessed directly, with drop-in OpenAI compatibility so migration takes minutes.

Is my fine-tuning data private? Yes. Your data trains your private adapters and never leaks into shared weights.

That's it. Five minutes from now you could be running the same technology that helped build the AI industry.

Ready to see it for yourself? Start with AI Models — free to start → Zero upfront cost. We only win when you win.