What is Serverless Inference? Leverage AI Models Without Managing Servers

Companies wanting to remain competitive are eager to incorporate artificial intelligence capabilities across their products and services. Our 2025 Currents Research report, surveying developers at growing tech businesses, found that 25% of respondents are fortifying existing products with AI, while 22% are developing new products with AI. Whether it’s adding smart product recommendations to improve customer experiences, implementing natural language processing to streamline support workflows, or incorporating predictive analytics to guide business decisions, AI integration delivers tangible advantages.

Traditionally, companies deployed machine learning models through server-based inference—provisioning dedicated servers or virtual machines, installing the necessary frameworks, and managing the entire infrastructure lifecycle themselves. Companies hosted the models and were responsible for all aspects of availability, reliability, and scaling of these model endpoints. This self-managed approach applied primarily to open-source models, though deploying proprietary models from providers like OpenAI or Anthropic presents its own complexities and typically requires direct integration with their APIs.

This approach gives organizations complete control but demands significant DevOps expertise to handle capacity planning, scaling, security patching, and monitoring—all while managing the costs of keeping servers running even during periods of low demand. Serverless inference is a compelling alternative, allowing developers to call powerful models through straightforward APIs without managing any underlying infrastructure, scaling automatically with demand while only charging for actual usage.

What is serverless inference?

Serverless inference is an approach to using machine learning models that eliminates the need to provision or manage any underlying infrastructure while still enabling applications to access AI capabilities. Instead of running models on dedicated servers you maintain yourself, you simply make API calls to a managed service that handles all the complex resource allocation, scaling, and availability behind the scenes. You pay only for the tokens used during inference—no idle servers, no capacity planning headaches, and no infrastructure maintenance overhead.

For example, a developer might integrate OpenAI’s GPT models into their customer support chatbot by making simple API calls that generate responses based on conversation history and support documentation. Similarly, an e-commerce site could upgrade their product search by implementing Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet to understand natural language queries without having to manage any of the underlying model infrastructure.

Major cloud providers like AWS Bedrock, Google Cloud’s Vertex AI, Azure AI Foundry, and DigitalOcean’s GenAI Platform offer serverless inference options. This option reduces both the technical barriers and operational costs of incorporating advanced AI into applications.

Server-based inference vs serverless inference

Server-based inference gives you granular control over model selection, optimization techniques, and hardware configuration—ideal for specialized models with unique dependencies or when you need guaranteed performance at predictable costs. Server-based solutions excel at supporting computationally intensive applications like real-time audio generation, automatic speech recognition (ASR), and high-resolution image creation that require specialized hardware acceleration. These resource-intensive use cases often demand custom GPU configurations and fine-tuned environments that can only be optimized effectively on dedicated infrastructure where latency and throughput can be precisely controlled.

Teams with specific compliance requirements, existing infrastructure investments, or consistent high-volume workloads may find server-based deployments more economical in the long run despite the upfront work.

On the other hand, serverless inference excels in scenarios with variable or unpredictable traffic patterns where paying for idle capacity wastes resources, and where development speed outweighs the need for customization. The operational simplicity creates a lower barrier to entry for AI adoption, making it particularly valuable for startups, rapid prototyping phases, or organizations without dedicated machine learning operations teams. It’s also ideal for companies that prefer to allocate their engineering resources toward building AI applications rather than investing in specialized infrastructure management capabilities.

Benefits of serverless inference

Serverless inference has simplified how companies approach AI implementation by removing traditional barriers. A SaaS analytics startup wanting to add natural language query capabilities to their dashboard might hesitate at the complexity of maintaining ML infrastructure, especially when customer usage fluctuates throughout the month. With serverless inference, they can simply integrate API calls into their existing application and quickly start providing conversational data analysis without infrastructure changes or specialized expertise.

Organizations adopting serverless inference gain several advantages over traditional deployment methods:

• Zero infrastructure management. Engineering teams eliminate the burden of server provisioning, cluster sizing, and node configuration that typically requires non-trivial initial setup time. This absence of infrastructure responsibility extends beyond deployment to the entire ML model lifecycle, freeing developers from security patches, framework updates, and driver compatibility issues.

• True consumption-based pricing. Companies pay only for the milliseconds of compute time actually used during model execution, with no charges accruing during quiet periods. This can translate to cost savings for applications with bursty traffic patterns compared to maintaining dedicated GPU instances that sit idle much of the time.

• Automatic scaling. Serverless platforms handle the complex orchestration of scaling resources up during traffic spikes and down during lulls without any manual intervention. This elastic scaling happens behind the scenes in seconds, allowing even small applications to handle unexpected viral moments or seasonal demand without performance degradation.

• Simplified model maintenance. Developers can access numerous models from various providers through a single consistent interface and authentication system rather than maintaining separate accounts and API keys. This unified management layer eliminates the operational complexity of handling rate limits, token quotas, and billing relationships with multiple AI vendors.

• Reduced time-to-market. Product teams can integrate production-ready AI capabilities into existing applications in days by eliminating much of the entire infrastructure planning and deployment phase. This acceleration of the development cycle allows for faster experimentation, more rapid iteration, and quicker validation of AI-powered features with your real users.

Best practices for serverless inference

Serverless inference allows you to deploy machine learning models without managing servers, but it requires careful tuning to achieve great performance and cost-efficiency. Below are a handful of best practices for running inference. These practices apply broadly to different model types (from NLP to computer vision) and will help improve latency, reliability, and cost management in a serverless setup.

Optimize models and resources for inference efficiency

Choose an appropriately optimized model and runtime to meet your performance needs. Selecting a smaller, less complex model can reduce inference time and costs for simpler tasks (for example, using a moderate-sized model for basic text summarization instead of an ultra-large model). Ensure your deployment has sufficient compute horsepower: using a more powerful instance type or adding a GPU can serve predictions with lower latency and handle more concurrent requests.

Minimize cold starts for low-latency performance

Serverless inference platforms may introduce cold-start delays when scaling up new instances, which can hurt latency. To avoid users waiting on model container spin-up, configure a minimum number of instances or concurrency so that at least one worker is always warm. If your traffic pattern is spiky or unpredictable, don’t rely solely on just-in-time scaling—large surges might not be met fast enough.

Use auto-scaling and throughput planning

Take advantage of each platform’s auto-scaling capabilities to match resources to demand, and tune the settings to your workload. Configure scaling parameters with appropriate maximum limits (and non-zero minimums if consistent latency is required) so your model can scale out in time for peak traffic. Be mindful of scaling limitations: if requests ramp up too rapidly, the service might not add instances fast enough. For sharp traffic spikes, you may need pre-provisioned capacity or manual scaling to maintain low latency.

Plan for your throughput needs by checking the provider’s quotas (e.g. requests or tokens per minute) and using reserved capacity options when applicable. For sustained high-volume usage, consider provisioning dedicated throughput to guarantee a certain performance level.

Monitor inference performance and logs

Implement robust monitoring for your serverless inference endpoints using the cloud platform’s built-in tools. Track key metrics like request throughput, latency, and error rates to ensure the model is responding consistently and to spot anomalies quickly. Some monitoring tools allow you to track usage metrics such as model invocation counts and token consumption across your foundation models, and enable detailed invocation logging (capturing request and response data) for auditing and debugging purposes.

DigitalOcean GenAI Platform: Agents vs Serverless Inference

DigitalOcean’s GenAI Platform, launched in public preview in January 2025, offers developers two powerful approaches to integrating AI into applications without deep machine learning expertise. Both Agents and Serverless Inference run on the same infrastructure with unified billing and authentication, giving you the flexibility to use either option separately or combine them based on your specific needs.

While Agents provide a structured, context-aware approach with knowledge bases, Serverless Inference delivers direct, flexible access to raw model power through a simplified API interface.

AI agents

AI agents are intelligent, context-aware assistants that maintain conversation history, follow specific instructions, and can access knowledge bases to provide informed responses. They excel at multi-turn conversations and complex interactions where maintaining context is crucial, with built-in features for routing between specialized sub-agents and connecting to external systems through function calling.

Choose agents when you need AI solutions that require minimal coding to set up. This option is perfect for developers who want a pre-configured system that handles conversation management and knowledge retrieval automatically.

AI Agents are ideal for these use cases:

• Customer support automation. Create support bots that remember previous interactions, follow company guidelines, and draw from custom documentation to provide accurate assistance.

• Virtual product advisors. Build AI e-commerce shopping assistants that remember customer preferences, access product databases, and provide personalized recommendations.

• Interactive learning tools. Develop AI educational agents that adapt to student progress, access course materials, and provide tailored guidance.

• Business process automation. Deploy agents that handle routine workflows, access company knowledge bases, and integrate with existing business systems.

Serverless Inference

Serverless Inference, the newest addition to the GenAI Platform, provides developers with direct, low-level access to powerful AI models like OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, and Llama through a simple API with zero infrastructure management. It offers a stateless, flexible approach that allows for tight integration with your application logic, enabling complete control over prompt engineering while eliminating the operational overhead of managing model access across providers.

Opt for Serverless Inference when you need maximum flexibility and control over how AI models integrate with your application code. This approach is best suited for developers who want to handle prompt engineering themselves and need direct, programmatic access to models without the overhead of agent-based features.

Serverless Inference excels in these implementation scenarios:

• Content enhancement workflows. Integrate text improvement capabilities for grammar checking, tone adjustments, and style refinement directly into your content creation tools.

• Real-time data processing. Feed application data directly to models for instant analysis, classification, or extraction without needing to maintain conversation history.

• Custom application integrations. Embed AI capabilities directly into existing software with complete control over how the model is used within your proprietary systems.

• Rapid prototyping and experimentation. Test different prompt techniques quickly with direct model access, allowing for faster iteration and optimization of AI performance.

References

• DigitalOcean Currents Research—February 2025

• Hugging Face Guide on Quantization

Serverless inference FAQs

What’s the difference between serverless inference and traditional server-based deployment?

Server-based deployment requires you to provision and manage infrastructure, giving you more control but adding operational overhead. Serverless inference eliminates infrastructure management completely, with automatic scaling and pay-per-use pricing but potentially higher per-request costs for high-volume, consistent workloads.

Which cloud platforms offer serverless inference options?

Major cloud providers including AWS SageMaker, Google Cloud Vertex AI, Microsoft Azure ML, and DigitalOcean’s GenAI Platform all offer serverless inference capabilities for ML models. Specialized platforms like Modal, DataCrunch, and Vultr also provide serverless inference.

How do I handle cold starts with serverless inference?

Our serverless inference endpoints are designed for flexible, on-demand scalability with minimal infrastructure overhead. During low-traffic periods, you may experience cold start latency when invoking models after periods of inactivity, as the backend infrastructure provisions resources and loads the model into memory. This is an expected behavior of serverless architecture that balances cost efficiency with on-demand availability.

To mitigate cold start delays, consider implementing warm-up strategies through periodic “ping” requests, adopting async-first designs for less latency-sensitive workflows, or using smaller or quantized models for time-critical applications. At DigitalOcean, we’re actively working on reducing cold start latency as part of our 2025 roadmap improvements.

Build the next big thing with Serverless Inference on DigitalOcean GenAI Platform

Experience the fastest path to production AI with DigitalOcean’s Serverless Inference—built for developers who need simplicity without sacrificing control. Stop juggling multiple vendor accounts, infrastructure configurations, and separate billing systems just to integrate powerful AI into your applications.

Here’s what makes Serverless Inference on GenAI Platform the developer-friendly choice:

• Access popular models and open source models through a single API key

• Deploy in minutes with zero infrastructure to manage or configure

• Pay only for the inferences you use with no idle server costs

• Scale automatically from a few requests to thousands per second

• Manage all model providers with unified billing and fixed endpoints

• Get optimal performance for both lightweight models and resource-intensive LLMs

Ready to build smarter applications without the DevOps overhead? Try Serverless Inference today and turn your AI ideas into production-ready features in record time.