Guides · AI
What is an AI gateway, and do you need one?
An AI gateway is one checkpoint between everything that calls an AI model and the providers that answer. Here’s what it does, the decisions behind one, and how to tell whether you need one yet.
What is an AI gateway?
Your applications, agents and scripts call the gateway instead of calling model providers directly. The gateway holds the provider keys and applies the same rules to every call. It’s also called an LLM gateway: the same thing.
Microsoft describes its AI Gateway as a shared point of control for how applications and agents connect to AI services. AWS publishes guidance for a multi-provider AI gateway built on LiteLLM, the open-source gateway.
Without one, every team wires in models its own way, and nobody sees the whole picture. In IBM’s 2025 breach study, 97% of organizations with AI-related breaches lacked proper AI access controls (IBM, 2025).
What an AI gateway does
One door for every model
Each team, application and agent gets its own key to the gateway, not to the provider. Change models or providers behind it without changing your applications.
Spend you can see and cap
Every call is priced and attributed by team, use case, model and key. Budgets and rate limits stop the work when they run out, so finance sees the bill before it arrives.
Sensitive data screened
Prompts are checked for personal and sensitive data before they leave your environment. What’s found is masked or blocked, by rules you set.
The right model for each job
Routine work goes to cheaper models, and hard problems to stronger ones. Calls fail over when a provider is down, and repeated questions can be answered from a cache.
A record of every call
Who called which model, when, and at what cost, in one place. Where prompts hold sensitive data, the logs can record the call without the message.
Policy that's enforced
Only approved models and tools are reachable, under limits you set. Your AI policy stops being a document and becomes a control.
The decisions that matter
The software is the easy part: good open-source and managed gateways exist. These decisions are what make one work:
- Where it runs. In your own cloud account, the gateway adds no new company to your data’s path. A hosted gateway is quicker to start, but your prompts pass through one more company’s servers.
- What it logs. Prompts can hold the very data you’re protecting. Decide what’s kept, for how long, and who can read it.
- How you test redaction. Measure the detection rate on a labeled sample of your own data before go-live, and have someone accept what’s left.
- How you stop bypass. A gateway only governs the calls that go through it. Cloud access rules can deny direct model access, and a code scan finds calls that skip it.
- What it can’t govern. SaaS assistants such as Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT Enterprise don’t call through your gateway. Their own admin controls and policies govern them.
- Who owns the rules. Budgets, approved models and exceptions need an owner who signs off, or the rules drift.
Signs you need an AI gateway now
If any of these is true, it’s time:
- More than one team, tool or agent calls AI models.
- Nobody can say what AI costs by team or product until the bill arrives.
- Provider keys sit in code, configuration files or on people’s laptops.
- People paste customer or employee data into AI tools.
- You want to change models without rewriting applications.
- An auditor, customer or board asks what data goes to AI providers.
- Agents call models in loops, with nothing capping what they spend.
Start with the Governed AI Platform
Our Governed AI Platform puts an AI gateway in your own cloud account in 8–12 weeks, at a fixed fee. It’s built on the open-source LiteLLM gateway, and it screens sensitive data, caps spend by team, scores answer quality and shows where spend can fall. Start free: the Gateway Bypass Check finds code that calls a model provider directly, and the AI Spend Snapshot shows spend by key and model.
Related services
Governed AI Platform
One gateway for your AI traffic: governed, measured and capped.
AI Observability & Measurement
Find out what AI is returning, what it costs and which savings apply.
Safe AI Adoption & Governance
Adopt the AI tools your leadership mandated, with controls that hold.
Questions about AI gateways
Do I need an AI gateway?
If more than one team or tool calls AI models, yes. It’s where your AI policy gets enforced, not just written: one place to screen data, cap spend and change models. With a single application on a single model, its own controls may be enough for now.
What’s the difference between an AI gateway and an API gateway?
An API gateway routes and secures requests between services, and it counts requests. An AI gateway understands model calls: it counts and prices tokens, reads prompts for sensitive data and can send a call to a different model. Some API gateways add these features, as Microsoft’s API Management does.
Is an AI gateway the same as an LLM gateway?
Yes. LLM stands for large language model, the kind of model behind ChatGPT, Claude and Copilot. “AI gateway” is the more common name, and some products also govern the tools agents call.
What are some examples of AI gateways?
Cloud providers offer them, such as Microsoft’s AI Gateway and the AI features in Azure API Management. LiteLLM is an open-source gateway that you run yourself, and the one AWS’s guidance builds on. API and network vendors also sell hosted gateways.
Should we build our own AI gateway?
Start from an existing gateway rather than writing one: routing, budgets and redaction are solved problems. The work that’s specific to you is the decisions, the testing and the rules. That’s where projects succeed or stall.
Will an AI gateway make us compliant?
It gives your compliance program enforced controls and the evidence behind them: access control, redaction, audit trails and spend limits. Your auditors and your compliance team still make the call.
Find out what a gateway would cover.
A 15-minute conversation, and a straight answer on whether you need a gateway yet. No commitment. No sales pressure. Just answers.