# Introduction to Integrations

Stream’s Python AI SDK ships with a growing catalogue of **plugins** that connect third-party AI services to your live video calls. Each plugin wraps a specific AI provider and exposes a unified API so you can swap vendors without rewriting business logic.

## Why Use an Plugin

- **Quality & speed**: Leverage specialised models (e.g. Deepgram’s high-accuracy STT, ElevenLabs’ realistic TTS) without hosting anything yourself.
- **Drop-in architecture**: Plugins of the same type share the same life-cycle (e.g. for STT: `process_audio()`, `on("transcript")`, `close()`, ...). You can chain them or replace them in minutes.
- **Runs inside your call**: The SDK streams PCM frames directly to the provider in real-time, then emits SDK events that can be listened for and acted upon.

## What can you build?

| Capability                     | Example providers           |
| ------------------------------ | --------------------------- |
| Speech-to-Text (STT)           | Deepgram, Moonshine (local) |
| Text-to-Speech (TTS)           | ElevenLabs, Kokoro          |
| Voice Activity Detection (VAD) | Silero                      |

Combine them to create richer pipelines; e.g. **VAD → STT → Moderation → TTS** for a real-time, policy-aware voice agent. For an example of this, see our ["building an LLM conversation pipeline" tutorial](https://getstream.io/video/docs/python-ai/tutorials/build-an-llm-conversation-pipeline/).

See the other pages in this section for our individual third-party integrations. We'll add more over time, and you can even write your own!

## Creating Your Own Plugins

You can absolutely write your own plugins to connect other AI providers to the AI Python SDK! Follow [this guide](https://getstream.io/video/docs/python-ai/integrations/create-your-own-plugin/) to learn how.

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This page was last updated at 2025-08-15T14:16:42.320Z.

For the most recent version of this documentation, visit [https://getstream.io/video/docs/python-ai/integrations/](https://getstream.io/video/docs/python-ai/integrations/).