diff --git a/packages/core/src/tracing/vercel-ai/index.ts b/packages/core/src/tracing/vercel-ai/index.ts
index 1d8a27e8e3aa..5458ace456c5 100644
--- a/packages/core/src/tracing/vercel-ai/index.ts
+++ b/packages/core/src/tracing/vercel-ai/index.ts
@@ -266,6 +266,12 @@ function processEndedVercelAiSpan(span: SpanJSON): void {
     return;
   }
 
+  // The Vercel AI SDK sets span status to raw error message strings.
+  // Any such value should be normalized to a SpanStatusType value. We pick internal_error as it is the most generic.
+  if (span.status && span.status !== 'ok') {
+    span.status = 'internal_error';
+  }
+
   renameAttributeKey(attributes, AI_USAGE_COMPLETION_TOKENS_ATTRIBUTE, GEN_AI_USAGE_OUTPUT_TOKENS_ATTRIBUTE);
   renameAttributeKey(attributes, AI_USAGE_PROMPT_TOKENS_ATTRIBUTE, GEN_AI_USAGE_INPUT_TOKENS_ATTRIBUTE);
   renameAttributeKey(attributes, AI_USAGE_CACHED_INPUT_TOKENS_ATTRIBUTE, GEN_AI_USAGE_INPUT_TOKENS_CACHED_ATTRIBUTE);
diff --git a/packages/core/test/lib/tracing/vercel-ai-span-status.test.ts b/packages/core/test/lib/tracing/vercel-ai-span-status.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..dbba343eca42
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/core/test/lib/tracing/vercel-ai-span-status.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+import { describe, expect, it } from 'vitest';
+import { addVercelAiProcessors } from '../../../src/tracing/vercel-ai';
+import type { SpanJSON } from '../../../src/types-hoist/span';
+import { getDefaultTestClientOptions, TestClient } from '../../mocks/client';
+
+describe('vercel-ai span status normalization', () => {
+  function processSpan(status: string): string | undefined {
+    const options = getDefaultTestClientOptions({ tracesSampleRate: 1.0 });
+    const client = new TestClient(options);
+    client.init();
+    addVercelAiProcessors(client);
+
+    const span: SpanJSON = {
+      description: 'test',
+      span_id: 'test-span-id',
+      trace_id: 'test-trace-id',
+      start_timestamp: 1000,
+      timestamp: 2000,
+      origin: 'auto.vercelai.otel',
+      status,
+      data: {},
+    };
+
+    const eventProcessor = client['_eventProcessors'].find(p => p.id === 'VercelAiEventProcessor');
+    const processedEvent = eventProcessor!({ type: 'transaction' as const, spans: [span] }, {});
+    return (processedEvent as { spans?: SpanJSON[] })?.spans?.[0]?.status;
+  }
+
+  it('normalizes raw error message status to internal_error', () => {
+    expect(processSpan("FileNotFoundError: The file '/nonexistent/file.txt' does not exist")).toBe('internal_error');
+  });
+
+  it('preserves ok status', () => {
+    expect(processSpan('ok')).toBe('ok');
+  });
+});