Using Images and Files as Input Data

Up until now, we’ve been working with text-only interactions. But modern AI applications need to understand more than just words. They also need to analyze images, read documents, and extract insights from visual and file-based content. In this lesson, we’ll explore how the OpenAI API enables the direct transmission of images and files to AI models for analysis.

By the end of this lesson, you’ll know how to build applications that can examine photos, read PDFs, analyze documents, and extract meaningful information from any visual or file-based content.

Why images and files matter?

Think about how much information exists outside of plain text.

• Images: Screenshots, photos, diagrams, charts, handwritten notes.

• Documents: PDFs, presentations, research papers, contracts.

Traditional text-only AI would require us to manually describe these inputs. Now, we can send them directly to the AI for automatic analysis, extraction, and understanding. Instead of asking, “Can you help me analyze this image I’m describing?” we can now ask, “What do you see in this image?” and ...