During its annual Ship conference, Vercel announced a new open-source framework for AI agents. With eve, the company aims to simplify the development of autonomous AI applications. At the same time, Vercel is introducing Passport, a management layer designed to give organizations more control over AI projects that arise outside the IT department.
AI agents are currently among the most significant developments in the AI market. With eve, Vercel is targeting developers who want to build such applications without having to deal extensively with the underlying infrastructure. According to DevClass, the framework eliminates much of the technical complexity surrounding sandboxing, context management, and execution.
Eve uses TypeScript and Markdown and runs agents in isolated virtual machines by default. The framework also includes tools for testing and evaluating agent behavior. The source code is available as open source under the Apache 2.0 license.
Vercel CTO Malte Ubl states that developers should primarily be able to focus on an agent’s functionality, while the framework automatically handles the operational aspects. As a result, he believes that building agents becomes significantly more accessible.
Although eve integrates with Vercel’s cloud platform by default, the company emphasizes that developers are not locked into that environment. The framework supports various model providers and can also be run locally.
To connect with AI models, eve uses Vercel’s existing AI SDK. In addition, the company offers an AI Gateway that provides access to multiple model providers through a single interface. If a model is temporarily unavailable, the system can automatically switch to an alternative.
Passport against shadow AI
In addition to eve, Vercel introduced several features for business customers. Central to these is Passport, an identity layer that connects applications and AI agents to existing identity and access management systems, such as Microsoft Entra and Okta.
According to Vercel, the number of employees independently developing applications using AI is growing. Because AI assistants often opt for popular technologies such as Next.js and hosting via Vercel, applications are increasingly being created that remain outside the IT department’s purview. Passport is designed to help organizations better manage and secure such projects.
The new enterprise offering also includes Connect for token management, Enterprise Managed Users for centralized user management, and Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC). With the latter option, organizations can use the Vercel platform on AWS infrastructure that they manage themselves.
Competition in the developer market
With these new announcements, Vercel is explicitly seeking to compete with companies such as AWS and Cloudflare. The company is positioning itself as a platform that leverages common technologies like Node.js, Python, and PostgreSQL, rather than a completely proprietary runtime environment.
The launch of eve demonstrates that Vercel is no longer focusing exclusively on web applications but also aims to play a role in the rapidly growing market for AI agents. At the same time, the company is attempting to address a new challenge within organizations: the rise of shadow AI, in which employees use generative AI to build applications outside of existing governance and security processes.
Also read: Vercel hit by attack via compromised AI tool