Text classification

You can classify text in your document with the text classification API to identify whether the data in your file matches the key-value pair format in schema definitions for various document types.

By pre-processing the document, you can quickly verify whether a document is classified into one of the pre-defined schemas or a custom schema without performing key-value pair extraction which can be a longer resource intensive process. You can then decide which schema to use to correctly extract text into fields in a key-value pair format.

Compatibility and specifications

Cloud platforms

Supported input file types

You can classify text from documents in different languages, or from a document that has a mix of multiple languages. Classify text from the following file types:

  • BMP
  • DOC
  • DOCX
  • GIF
  • HTML
  • JFIF
  • JPG
  • Markdown
  • PDF
  • PNG
  • PPT
  • PPTX
  • TIFF
  • XLSX
Supported storage types

You can store your input documents in the following connected storage types:

  • IBM Cloud Object Storage

  • Amazon S3

  • Any generic Amazon S3-compatible storage

  • Box

  • IBM watsonx.data SharePoint

  • IBM FileNet P8

    Note: The IBM FileNet P8 connection is only available in the Toronto data center and for a managed cloud service provider (MCSP).

For details about how to create a connection to the various types of data stores in your project, see Connectors for watsonx.ai.

Supported foundation models

The text classification API is certified to use the mistral-small-3-1-24b-instruct-2503 model for key-value pair classification.

You can also use alternative models that can process visual input and respond in a JSON format such as:

  • llama-4-maverick-17b-128e-instruct-fp8
  • mistral-medium-2505

For foundation model details, see Supported foundation models.

Restrictions

  • The text classification API can only be used with English language documents.

Ways to work

You can classify text from documents stored in your watsonx.ai project with these programmatic methods:

To set up access to use the text classification API, see the Developer resources.

REST API

You can classify text from files in IBM watsonx.ai programmatically by using the text classification method of the watsonx.ai REST API.

For details about how to customize a text classification request, see Text classification parameters.

For API method details, see the watsonx.ai API reference documentation.

Python

You can extract text from files in IBM watsonx.ai programmatically by using the Python library.

See the TextClassification class of the watsonx.ai Python library.

Node.js

You can classify text from files in IBM watsonx.ai programmatically by using the Node.js SDK. For more information, see the following resources:

Learn more