1. Zdeněk Němec, superface.ai, September ‘23
Autonomous Agents
The year of AI: Forget about APIs?
superface.ai

2. AI and APIs
• Pioneered the API-first approach
at Apiary.io → Oracle
• Founder of API consulting Good
API
• Helped several Fortune 100
companies with their API
strategy and execution
• Founder and CTO of Superface.ai
Zdeněk “Z” Němec
superface.ai

3. We have been upgraded!
superface.ai

4. Year of AI: Impact on APIs?
superface.ai

5. APIs today
superface.ai

6. API
Interface for sharing capabilities
GET https:!"wttr.in/london?format=j1
200 OK
Technical
Business
Weather forecast for London
- location
- temperature in Celsius
- humidity
- barometric pressure
- uv indext
- and more…
superface.ai

7. Tight coupling
Welding client and server together
Server
Client
GET https:!"wttr.in/london?format=j1
Server implementation
hardcoded in client
superface.ai

8. API provider challenges
API providers facing many problems
How to version API?
API design
Securing APIs
How to publish API?
API product management
What API style? REST vs GraphQL vs …
How to monetize API
How to discover API
API testing
API documentation
API SDK
Developer experience DX
API governance
Observability
Operations & monitoring
superface.ai

9. Analysis Development Testing Deployment
time budget
Expectation:
Analysis Development … …
Reality:
superface.ai
API consumer perspective
Finding the right API
Capability I need?
Costs?
How to get access?
What are the limitations? SLAs?
How to use it?
How it works?
How to map my data model?
Why is it not doing what I want?
Typical API integration project

10. API plumbing
Manual labor needed to provide and consume capabilities
!
Design API
"
Document
#
Publish
$
Discover
%
Try
&'
Implement Maintain
(
Build SDK
)
Purchase
*
Test
&
Test
!
Implement
+
API provider API consumer
superface.ai

11. API documentation
The centerpiece of APIs
Most information needed are
transferred “out of band" in
human-centric API
documentation*
⚠
superface.ai * - not accessible to machines until 2023

12. Using AI to reduce API plumbing
superface.ai

13. AI API analysis
AI connects the APIs for you
• You can use ChatGPT / Bard / Copilot directly to generate the code
• _if_ it knows the API
• the API information _might_ be outdated
• OpenAPI (OAS) quality varies greatly, often the critical information are not in OAS
• Code quality differs greatly based on the language
• You are still coupled with the API
• Chatbots are for users, not programmers
superface.ai

14. Comlink
Communication link for APIs
1. Analyze API documentation, plain text, HTML, or OAS
2. Figure out how to fulfill YOUR use case with the given API
3. Your application calls the API directly using the Comlink interface and client
API Documentation
API
Your App
superface.ai

15. Your use-case
Comlink interface
# index API from plain text, readme.io, or OpenAPI Spec
$ superface prepare https://resend.com/docs
# create new Comlink for your use case
$ superface new resend “send an email”
Comlink interface
superface.ai
Resend API
Your App

16. Your vocabulary
Change data model, let AI to figure out the mapping
# run mapping; Comlink engine will figure out
how to map `from` to `sender`
$ superface map send-email
superface.ai

17. • Dramatically reduces the time needed to integrate an API
• Decouples client from the API, including
• API data model
• API style, media types, etc.
Decoupled
Robust, free to evolve
v1 v2
Breaking API change
Your App
API
superface.ai

18. One use-case multiple APIs
Unified APIs? Your app can handle it!
# Index API documentations of different providers
$ superface prepare https://resend.com/docs
$ superface prepare https://docs.sendgrid.com/api-reference
Resend API
Sendgrid API
Your App
# Map use case to Resend API
$ superface map send-email resend
# Map use case to SendGrid API
$ superface map send-email sendgrid
superface.ai

19. AI-powered API documentation
Best developer experience for your API
superface.ai

20. superface.ai
• Integrate many APIs really quick
• Not bother with API docs
• API client resilient to changes
• We don’t even have to know the endpoint(s)

21. Do we have to know what API we
use?
superface.ai

22. Autonomous Agent
superface.ai

23. Autonomous Agent
Autonomy: freedom from external control or influence;
independence
Agent: a person who acts on behalf of another person, the
doer of an action
A software that acts on
behalf of its users, that is
free to make decisions.
superface.ai
Autonomous Agent Concept
https://lilianweng.github.io/posts/2023-06-23-agent/

24. Autonomous API Agent
• No hardcoded API calls
• Decides at runtime what
API to connect to
• Figures out at runtime
how to connect
API
API
Agent
Registry
I am here, and this
is how agents
connect
I need to send
email. What API is
available?
Here are the
APIs and how
to connect
API Communication
superface.ai

25. API landscape
Agent
Inventory 1 Inventory 2
Orders
CRM
PLM
Agent is written for a use case,
GET https:!"192.12.13.1/service/
inventory?pid=12355
“Check inventory”
not for an API
Use cases, not APIs
superface.ai
Boundary within agent navigates

26. Multiple API landscapes
Mesh of capabilities
Stripe Azure
Ayden
Twilio
Google Fedex
…
Global Landscape
Global capabilities
Partner organization
Service 2
Service 1 Service 3
Agent
CRM Inventory 2
Orders
Inventory 1
PLM
Organization landscape
Partner capabilities
superface.ai

27. Navigation in a landscape
Unknown or changing landscape of capabilities and providers
Superface Hub
Superface Auto Agent
"Who can tell me about inventory?” List of available inventory services
“What is the inventory for our
product?”
“The inventory for is 42”
Internal inventory services
superface.ai

28. Personal assistant
Autonomous agent decides what of the available email services to use
based on its configuration and your identity…
“When was the last email from
Edgar?”
Gmail API
Based on Hub configuration
auto agent will ask Gmail
“The last email from
edgar@superface.ai was
Yesterday”
superface.ai

29. Provider selection
The right capability and provider for the task
Price, quality and relevancy…
“Send “Greetings from Jane” to
+38553694008”
Infobip API
Based on configuration, price,
and country auto agent uses
Infobip
“Your message has been
sent”
superface.ai

30. Workflows
Multi-step, complex, workflows in unknown or changing landscape
superface.ai
superface.ai

31. Forget APIs?
superface.ai

32. Thank you!
Let’s talk!
Zdenek “Z” Nemec
Twitter/X: @zdne
superface.ai
superface.ai