An AI gateway acts as a central hub, allowing developers to connect their applications to various AI models from different providers through a single API. This simplifies managing multiple models, handling authentication, and optimizing requests.

Stripe is reportedly acquiring AI gateway startup OpenRouter for over $7 billion to integrate more deeply into the AI economy. For Stripe, OpenRouter could enable them to process transactions for AI model usage, helping them become a key infrastructure provider in the rapidly growing AI services market.