Summary
On July 2, 2026 Vercel added routing rules to its AI Gateway (in beta): firewall-style rules applied at the gateway rather than in application code. Rewrite rules transparently swap one model for another to survive outages or move off discontinued or expensive models, and deny rules block unapproved models with a 403. Rules are managed via the Vercel CLI and take effect instantly across all requests using team credentials.
What changed
Vercel AI Gateway introduced routing rules with two types: rewrite rules that substitute one model for another and deny rules that return 403 for unapproved models. Rules are pushed via the Vercel CLI and apply immediately to every request on team credentials without a code deploy.
Why it matters
Centralizing model policy at the gateway turns model choice into an operational control plane, letting platform teams enforce approved models, cap cost, and reroute around outages without touching application code, key governance as apps call many models.
Evidence excerpt
Routing rules are firewall-style rules that control which models your team can use, applied at the gateway level instead of in your application code; rewrite rules substitute one model for another, deny rules block requests to unapproved models with a 403.