# LLM observability





Axiom provides first-class observability for generative AI applications. Instrument your app using OpenTelemetry and Axiom automatically provisions a GenAI dashboard and waterfall trace view for every dataset containing AI telemetry.

## Instrument your app [#instrument-your-app]

<AIInstrumentationApproaches />

## Visualize traces in Console [#visualize-traces-in-console]

Visualizing and making sense of this telemetry data is a core part of the Axiom Console experience:

* A dedicated **AI traces waterfall view** visualizes single and multi-step LLM workflows, with clear input/output inspection at each stage.
* A pre-built **GenAI OTel dashboard** automatically appears for any dataset receiving AI telemetry. It features elements for tracking cost per invocation, time-to-first-token, call counts by model, and error rates.

### Access AI traces waterfall view [#access-ai-traces-waterfall-view]

1. Click the Query tab.

2. Create an APL query about your GenAI dataset. For example:

   ```kusto
   ['otel-demo-genai']
   | where ['attributes.gen_ai.operation.name'] == "chat"
   ```

   [Run in Playground](https://play.axiom.co/axiom-play-qf1k/query?initForm=%7B%22apl%22%3A%22%5B'otel-demo-genai'%5D%20%7C%20where%20%5B'attributes.gen_ai.operation.name'%5D%20%3D%3D%20'chat'%22%7D)

3. In the list of trace IDs, click the trace you want to explore.

4. Explore how spans within the trace are related to each other in the waterfall view. To only display AI spans, click **AI spans** in the top left.

<Frame>
  <img src="/docs/doc-assets/shots/gen-ai-waterfall-view.png" alt="AI traces waterfall view" />
</Frame>

### Access GenAI dashboard [#access-genai-dashboard]

Axiom automatically creates the GenAI dashboard if the field `attributes.gen_ai.operation.name` is present in your data.

To access the GenAI dashboard:

1. Click the Dashboards tab.
2. Click the dashboard &#x2A;*Generative AI Overview (DATASET\_NAME)** where `DATASET_NAME` is the name of your GenAI dataset.

[Run in Playground](https://play.axiom.co/axiom-play-qf1k/dashboards/genai.otel-demo-genai)

The GenAI dashboard provides you with important insights about your GenAI app such as:

* Vitals about requests, broken down by operation, capability, and step.
* Token usage and cost analysis
* Error analysis
* Comparison of performance and reliability of different AI models

<Frame>
  <img src="/docs/doc-assets/shots/gen-ai-dashboard.png" alt="AI traces waterfall view" />
</Frame>

## What’s next? [#whats-next]

* Use [GenAI APL functions](/apl/scalar-functions/genai-functions) to query and analyze your LLM data.
* See [GenAI attributes](/use-cases/llm-observability/gen-ai-attributes) for the full list of OpenTelemetry attributes Axiom recognizes.