The AI-enabled API lifecycle

How API design, development, testing, deployment, product management and consumption changes in the AI & Agentic Era

Best practices report

2025 Edition

Download the report

Unlock the future of API strategy

Reorient API design to better clarify the intent of an API (or the intent of a workflow use case), document for human and AI audiences, and understand costing impacts from a FinOps perspective to build a new type of AI-enabled APIs.

What you'll learn

  • Business roles will take a greater lead in describing primary use cases and describing the intent of use cases for AI agents. API governance as a necessary business capability will further grow in importance.
  • Solution architects, IT infrastructure leads and platform engineering teams will need to take on AI infrastructure responsibilities: setting up AI gateways and MCP servers.
  • Enablement and training teams will need to focus on supporting AI skills development across the organisation.
  • Dev teams building APIs will need to align more closely with standards and reduce risks of confusion from poorly documented APIs.
  • API testing and QA teams will need to take a human-in-the-loop approach: using AI for tedious tasks but enhancing the use of developer skills to assess results. 
  • DevOps will need to update rate management policies and build new skills in identifying possible agent and AI consumption of APIs.
  • New hybrid teams that combine both human workers and AI agents as team members will grow.

Why it matters

  • The AI-Enabled API Lifecycle will be central to digital businesses for years to come. AI is requiring new organisational structures, a changing approach to business decision-making, and retraining of existing workforces in order to ensure the benefits and value of AI can be realised.
  • There is no AI without APIs. Firstly, API platform engineering approaches and API infrastructure need to be adapted to incorporate AI infrastructure.
  • Decisions on workflow and intent descriptions, and better architecture mapping and infrastructure design will need to be done as part of the API design process so that appropriate FinOps costing can be done at the start of projects.
  • AI can assist at every stage of the API design and operational lifecycles. AI can speed up development, remove tedious tasks, and assist with standardizing and managing API assets and internal style guide practices across an organisation.

Get the data. Make better decisions.

Fill out the form to get instant access to the full report.

PDF

2025

English

  • Error encountered
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Mentioned in the report

No items found.
No items found.

Ready to invest in AI-enabled API lifecycle

Download the report