Editing Portal:Artificial Intelligence (section)

=== Large language models and the OpenAI API era ===

The rise of large language models changed Perl’s AI story. Instead of requiring every Perl program to run a model locally, modern Perl code can call hosted AI services through HTTP APIs. This fits Perl very well. Perl has always been strong at network requests, JSON, data transformation, automation, and glue code.

`OpenAI::API` is one example. Its documentation describes it as a Perl module that provides an interface to the OpenAI API, allowing Perl programs to generate text, translate languages, summarize text, create embeddings, generate images, list models, and perform related API tasks.<ref>MetaCPAN, “OpenAI::API,” https://metacpan.org/pod/OpenAI::API, accessed July 3, 2026.</ref>

This kind of module is important because it lowers the barrier to AI use in existing Perl systems. A legacy Perl application can add summarization, classification, extraction, natural-language search, or code-assistance features without being rewritten in Python or JavaScript. Perl can remain the host language while the model is provided by an external service.

The AI Perl Committee page also identifies OpenAI API support as one of its major project areas, describing a goal of full OpenAI ChatGPT support in Perl and an OpenAI-compatible layer for multiple LLM chatbots.<ref>Perl Community Roadmap, “AI Perl Committee,” https://perlcommunity.org/ai/, accessed July 3, 2026.</ref>