apidays Paris 2022 - APIs the next 10 years: Software, Society, Sovereignty, Sustainability December 14, 15 & 16, 2022 Closenote main track : The next five years of the API Economy Paolo Malinverno, VP of Strategy and Innovation at Salesforce ------ Check out our conferences at https://www.apidays.global/ Do you want to sponsor or talk at one of our conferences? https://apidays.typeform.com/to/ILJeAaV8 Learn more on APIscene, the global media made by the community for the community: https://www.apiscene.io Explore the API ecosystem with the API Landscape: https://apilandscape.apiscene.io/ Deep dive into the API industry with our reports: https://www.apidays.global/industry-reports/ Subscribe to our global newsletter: https://apidays.typeform.com/to/i1MPEW

1. The Future 5 Years of
the API Economy
Paolo Malinverno
VP of Strategy and Innovation

2. 2
Inflation
Fragile
Supply
Chains
Cyber
Threats
Rising
Interest
Rates
Pandemics
Climate
Crisis
Remote /
Hybrid
Work
A World Without Truth
War in Europe
Energy Crisis
UNCERTAINTY
https://diginomica.com/uncertainty-certain-transformation-not-option-automation-and-adaptability-are-key-success

3. 2023 SERIES OF EVENT
New York
May 16&17
Australia
October 11&12
Singapore
April 12&13
Helsinki & North
June 5&6
Paris
SEPTEMBER
London
November
15&16
June 28-30
SILICON VALLEY
March 14&15
Dubai & Middle East
February 22&23

4. Easy Truths for the next 5 years in APIs
[really easy]
APIs will be used more and more
● Consequence 1: everybody will take for granted that everything has
got APIs into it
● Consequence 2: everybody will talk about APIs less and less
● Consequence 3: you will still find difficult to find just the API you need
You will consume existing APIs, more than designing new ones
Consumers will still expect to use APIs for free
● In turn, API providers will still struggle to get value out of offering APIs
○ Both for directly and indirectly monetised APIs
The abundance of API standards (which means no real standards) will
continue
● Even in key verticals, like Financial Services

5. MEGA
Technology
Trends
and consequences for the world of APIs

6. Biz Technologists /Non
Techie Automation
The amount of technology work done by non
technology people is going to spike
According to Forrester, in the world there are:
● 22M of developers
● 1B of knowledge workers
APIs will be increasingly mixed with low / no
code and flows
● ‘Make customers interactions digital’
Fusion Teams will become increasingly
common
Consequences on APIs
1. Expect that your business / experience
APIs will be used:
a. By people / applications / digital twins who
don’t (care to) know how the API works
i. Or what system load they will cause
b. For usages they were never designed for
2. Biz Technologists need to be governed,
by you, first of all
3. If you include external APIs in your
developers’ portal, rate limit them if you
pay for them on a consumption basis
4. Consider your API will be just a building
block, like a microprocess, or a piece of
User Interface
5

7. Sustainability
Every Company will need to understand,
report and manage its greenhouse gas
emissions
Upstream, Operations, Downstream
Greenhouse gas footprint does change in
time, potentially wildly
● On factors like asset life, location of data centers, or
even company growth
EU Regulations on sustainability targets likely
to get heavier in time
Consequences on APIs
1. Massively data intensive
a. Forget about spreadsheets
2. It’s all about fishing out accurate
emissions data, over and over
a. Sounds familiar?
b. Absolutely not a trivial job
i. i.e. in manufacturing, especially downstream
ii. complicated by factoring in circularity or
workload and software efficiency
3. Heavy and frequent reporting
requirements
4. Design APIs for frequent consumption
a. And focus on data accuracy (e.g. real time)
5. Buy / sell sustainability credits
6

8. AI Job Augmentation
The use of AI technologies to augment
workers capabilities
● As opposed to fully automate (part of)
them
● The tension between augmentation and
automation is extremely complex
AI job augmentation is key in jobs which
heavily rely on Data and Analytics
Main decision blockers are risk, costs and
implementation complexity
Consequences on APIs
1. Increased use of AI APIs, at scale
a. Packaging an algorithm in an API will be a
very common way of distributing it
2. Never forget the G word (Governance)
3. If you design AI APIs, be ethical
a. There is a very fuzzy border between fair
commercial interest and plain bias
4. If you use AI APIs, assess the risks of the
APIs giving you skewed results. Ask yourself
three key questions
a. Who financed the development of the API
b. Is there any risk of vested interest
c. Can you trust the results of this APIs
d. What are the downstream consequences
and risks of skewed results
7

9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIp251KCz6k
The Metaverse

10. Two Warnings
1. I would fix this world before creating another (that we
will have to fix later)
2. I would not even start talking about rich men taking
over social networks
9

11. Web3, Immersive
Technologies, Metaverses
Gartner Definition: “Web3 is a new stack of
technologies for the development of
decentralized web applications that enable
users to control their own identity and data”
Web3 and the metaverse are complementary
concepts evolving in parallel
Similarly, immersive technologies will become
popular for training, remote expert guidance,
remote inspection, and remote collaboration
There will be huge investments in metaverses
● Perennially five years away?
Ask yourselves: what if people will prefer living
and working in the metaverse?
Consequences on APIs
1. With information stored in multiple
locations simultaneously and no single
authority or ownership, Web3 promises to
be API Heaven (or Hell)
a. Authentication and Identity Management will
be totally different (people own their data)
b. NFTs emerging
c. REST in peace?
2. Easy to say there will be APIs for immersive
technologies (especially Intraverses), but it
is very early days
3. Certainly the metaverse is still evolving a lot,
too far away to make API assumptions for
10

12. Digital Twins / Digital
Humans
Digital Twins have been around for years
● Customers, physical machinery, even
organisations all have potentially
sophisticated digital twins, today
Digital Humans are AI powered human-like
virtual beings, who can connect to any digital
entity (i.e. a chatbot), take decisions, and
also interact with humans using verbal and
non-verbal cues
● In other words, digital (non physical)
robots
Consequences on APIs
1. Today, digital twins already have APIs,
that mirror the APIs into their physical
twin
a. The digital twin APIs are used to test what if
scenarios, provide advanced customer care,
plan predictive maintenance, etc.
b. The physical twin APIs are called to
perform real life actions
2. Digital Humans will run algorithms to
simulate human behaviour, and will be
active
a. APIs will just be one of their (legacy)
communications channels
3. Innovative, truly digital business models
will fuel the Digital Humans Economy
11

13. Core Values.
Our North Star.
ETHICS