---
title: "AI Observability Setup | Grafana Cloud documentation"
description: "Set up AI Observability integration and start monitoring your AI stack"
---

# AI observability setup

This guide walks you through setting up the OpenTelemetry-native AI Observability integration to monitor your complete AI stack with distributed tracing, metrics, and logs sent to Grafana Cloud.

## Install the AI observability integration

To install the AI Observability integration:

1. In your Grafana Cloud stack, click **Connections** in the left-side menu.
2. Search for `AI Observability`.
3. Click the **AI Observability** card and follow the instructions to instrument your application.
4. Click **Install dashboards** to install all **5 specialized dashboards**:
   
   - **GenAI Observability** - Main LLM monitoring dashboard
   - **GenAI Evaluations** - AI quality and safety evaluation dashboard
   - **VectorDB Observability** - Vector database performance monitoring
   - **MCP Observability** - Model Context Protocol monitoring
   - **GPU Monitoring** - Hardware monitoring for GPU infrastructure

## Deployment options

The AI Observability instructions use the **OTLP Gateway** by default for the simplest setup, but you can choose the deployment method that best fits your needs:

### OTLP Gateway (Default configuration)

- **Quick setup** - Used by default in AI Observability integration instructions
- **Direct connection** from your application to Grafana Cloud
- **Minimal infrastructure** requirements
- **Ideal for** development, testing, and smaller production deployments

### OpenTelemetry Collector / Grafana Alloy (Alternative)

- **Advanced routing** and processing capabilities for complex environments
- **Better resource management** for high-volume applications
- **Enhanced security** and data transformation capabilities

## Verify your setup

After completing the setup:

1. Run your instrumented AI application
2. The OpenLIT SDK automatically starts sending telemetry data to Grafana Cloud
3. Navigate to any of the 5 installed dashboards to view your data:
   
   - **GenAI Observability** - LLM performance and usage metrics
   - **GenAI Evaluations** - AI quality and safety assessments
   - **VectorDB Observability** - Vector database performance
   - **MCP Observability** - Model Context Protocol monitoring
   - **GPU Monitoring** - Hardware performance metrics

## Troubleshooting

### Common issues

**No data appearing in dashboards**

- Verify OTEL environment variables are set correctly
- Check that OpenLIT is initialized
- Ensure your application is making AI/ML operations that generate telemetry

**Connection errors**

- Verify your API token has the correct permissions
- Check that the OTEL endpoint URL is correct for your Grafana Cloud zone
- Ensure network connectivity to Grafana Cloud endpoints

**Performance impact**

- OpenLIT is designed for minimal overhead, but monitor your application performance
- Consider using OpenTelemetry Collector for high-volume production workloads
- Adjust sampling rates if needed for very high-traffic applications