Vercel AI Updates: August 12, 2026

1. Vercel AI Gateway Index: DeepSeek Overtakes Google on Token Volume

Vercel. Vercel’s AI Gateway Production Index for August 2026 reports that DeepSeek became the second-largest lab by token volume, now running more than twice Google’s volume, as Google fell from 40% to 11% of gateway tokens between April and July. The average price paid per token dropped 13.6% as teams shifted toward cheaper models, even as overall spending rose 37%. The data offers a rare aggregate view of which models developers are actually routing production traffic to. Source

2. Vercel AI SDK Adds Grok Imagine Video 1.5 to Its xAI Provider

Vercel. The AI SDK’s xAI provider (@ai-sdk/xai@4.0.36) added the grok-imagine-video-1.5 model with native 1080p support. The release also introduces a referenceVoiceIds parameter for reference-to-video audio and fixes reference routing logic for inputReferences arrays. The update keeps the SDK’s provider surface current with xAI’s latest generative video capabilities. Source

3. Vercel Sandbox Moves to Managed Images

Vercel. Vercel introduced Vercel Managed Images, a set of versioned, open-source base images that replace the deprecated Sandbox runtimes. The new default image ships with Node.js, Python, common coding agents, and standard utilities, switches the base from Amazon Linux to Ubuntu, and receives nightly security updates while letting developers pin specific versions for reproducibility. The change gives sandboxed and agent workloads a more predictable, maintained execution environment. Source