I try to pay attention to events going on in the API space beyond just APIStrat in Portland this fall (submit your CFP!!), and I saw a notification for PAPIs in São Paulo in two weeks, as well as Boston in October. I’m glad we’ve always kept @APIStrat a wider community thing, but if I had to pick one vertical to focus on in 2017 and on, it would definitely be machine learning APIs.
PAPIs has been on my radar for a while now, but I think their foresight is going to start paying off this year. While there are a number of trends moving the API space forward, things like microservices, serverless, and GraphQL, nothing will compare to what is happening with machine learning (ML). I think 90% of the ML will be BS, but there will be 5-10% of it that will actually move industries forward in any meaningful way, and the scope of the investment into everything ML is going to be dizzying for the foreseeable future.
Conferences like PAPIs are going to become increasingly important to help us sit down and have conversations about what ML and AI APIs do, or do not do. I see machine learning, cognitive, artificial intelligence and the buzzwords everybody likes to use just as the algorithmic evolution of the API industry. Where we will be moving beyond just data and content APIs as the default, and having a robust toolbox of algorithmic resources to bake into all of our applications will become standard operating procedure. I’m guessing we’ll see an increased presence of PAPIs conferences in cities around the globe, as well as waves of other ML and AI API-focused events pop up.
