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Building AI-Powered Applications with Next.js and OpenAI
Learn how to integrate OpenAI's GPT models into your Next.js applications for intelligent user experiences. This comprehensive guide covers setup, implementation, and best practices.
Dev ND
September 20, 2025
12 min read
1,292 views
# Building AI-Powered Applications with Next.js and OpenAI
In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore how to integrate OpenAI's powerful language models into your Next.js applications to create intelligent, responsive user experiences.
## What We'll Build
We'll create a smart content generation tool that can:
- Generate blog post ideas based on topics
- Create social media content
- Provide writing assistance and editing suggestions
- Analyze sentiment and tone
## Setting Up Your Development Environment
First, let's set up our Next.js project with the necessary dependencies:
```bash
npx create-next-app@latest ai-content-generator
cd ai-content-generator
npm install openai @types/node
```
## OpenAI API Integration
Here's how to set up the OpenAI client in your Next.js application:
```typescript
// lib/openai.ts
import OpenAI from 'openai';
const openai = new OpenAI({
apiKey: process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY,
});
export default openai;
```
## Creating Smart API Routes
Next.js API routes make it easy to create server-side endpoints that interact with OpenAI:
```typescript
// app/api/generate/route.ts
import { NextRequest, NextResponse } from 'next/server';
import openai from '@/lib/openai';
export async function POST(request: NextRequest) {
try {
const { prompt, type } = await request.json();
const completion = await openai.chat.completions.create({
model: "gpt-4",
messages: [
{
role: "system",
content: "You are a helpful writing assistant."
},
{
role: "user",
content: prompt
}
],
max_tokens: 500,
temperature: 0.7,
});
return NextResponse.json({
content: completion.choices[0].message.content
});
} catch (error) {
return NextResponse.json(
{ error: 'Failed to generate content' },
{ status: 500 }
);
}
}
```
## Building the Frontend Interface
Create an intuitive interface for content generation:
```tsx
'use client';
import { useState } from 'react';
export default function ContentGenerator() {
const [prompt, setPrompt] = useState('');
const [generated, setGenerated] = useState('');
const [loading, setLoading] = useState(false);
const generateContent = async () => {
setLoading(true);
try {
const response = await fetch('/api/generate', {
method: 'POST',
headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
body: JSON.stringify({ prompt }),
});
const data = await response.json();
setGenerated(data.content);
} catch (error) {
console.error('Generation failed:', error);
}
setLoading(false);
};
return (