Last updated: January 6

Let's Build: AI business card scanner with Transloadit

Kevin van Zonneveld

Co-founder · Amsterdam, The Netherlands ·

Business card scanners are a great example of productizing file workflows. You capture an image, clean it up, then extract contact details into structured fields. Transloadit’s primitives let you assemble that pipeline in a few steps.

What we’re building

Accept PNG/JPEG or PDF cards
Optimize images with 🤖 /image/optimize
Extract contact fields with 🤖 /ai/chat

Schema first (zod)

import { z } from 'zod'
import { zodToJsonSchema } from 'zod-to-json-schema'

const businessCardSchema = z.object({
  full_name: z.string().optional(),
  title: z.string().optional(),
  company: z.string().optional(),
  email: z.string().optional(),
  phones: z.array(z.string()).optional(),
  address: z.string().optional(),
  website: z.string().optional(),
  socials: z.array(z.string()).optional(),
})

const toJsonSchema = (schema: z.ZodTypeAny): unknown =>
  typeof (z as { toJSONSchema?: typeof zodToJsonSchema }).toJSONSchema === 'function'
    ? (z as { toJSONSchema: typeof zodToJsonSchema }).toJSONSchema(schema)
    : zodToJsonSchema(schema)

const businessCardJsonSchema = toJsonSchema(businessCardSchema)

Pipeline overview

PDF cards  ──▶ /ai/chat
Images     ──▶ /image/optimize ──▶ /ai/chat

Assembly snippet

const assembly = await transloadit.createAssembly({
  params: {
    steps: {
      pdf_verified: {
        robot: '/file/filter',
        use: ':original',
        accepts: [['${file.mime}', '==', 'application/pdf']],
      },
      non_pdf: {
        robot: '/file/filter',
        use: ':original',
        accepts: [['${file.mime}', '!=', 'application/pdf']],
      },
      card_image: {
        robot: '/image/optimize',
        use: 'non_pdf',
        progressive: true,
      },
      extract_card: {
        robot: '/ai/chat',
        use: ['pdf_verified', 'card_image'],
        model: 'anthropic/claude-4-sonnet-20250514',
        format: 'json',
        schema: JSON.stringify(businessCardJsonSchema),
        messages: 'Extract business card fields. Omit keys if unknown.',
        result: true,
      },
    },
  },
  files: {
    card: filePath,
  },
  waitForCompletion: true,
})

Try the example app

The runnable version of this post lives at example_apps/business-card-scanner/run.ts.

node example_apps/business-card-scanner/run.ts

Suggested inputs for visuals

Use the bundled samples or swap in a real card scan:

_assets/demos/inputs/streetsign1.jpg
_assets/demos/inputs/streetsign2.jpg
_assets/demos/inputs/transloadit-padded.png

Next steps

Add deduplication before inserting contacts into your CRM.
Normalize phone numbers and addresses per locale.
Add a manual review step for low-confidence extractions.