The entropy is high in the API world right now. I find it near impossible to read any “API news” right now because of the “disruption capture” that occurred across the API conversation. I firmly stand in the camp that we should be 100% resisting anything artificial intelligence in this moment due to environmental, labor, and authoritarian reasons, even before we get unreliability, complexity, and other details. All of this makes conversations around MCP, A2A, and other AI-fueled API specifications a none starter for me. I’ve gone on the record stating MCP is a bad idea, but even before these business reasons, using AI in this moment is simply just obeying in advanced to the power driving the discussions in this very dangerous moment. Period.
The Noise
The API conversation is very noisy right now. This is by design. The people in power (venture capital) have cultivated their bullhorn over the years, and the API pundit class has fallen neatly in light with venture capital marketing machine. If you are on LinkedIn right now you are getting exposed to the wind-machine that venture capital has cultivated over the years telling you that everything is moving faster than ever before and artificial intelligence is the future. It all seems so very true on LinkedIn, because Microsoft owns LinkedIn and very much is aligned with the popular narrative. The noise is the marketplace of sellers, but not the marketplace of buyers, so please remember the source of the noise you hear if you make your way onto LinkedIn.
Left Behind
On LinkedIn you will be regularly reminded that you will be left behind if you are not participating in artificial intelligence right now. Remember, this is a good thing. You don’t need to be along for every ride offered in the world of technology. Once you realize the scale and scope technological grift that is happening right now with artificial intelligence right now and that the crypto people and the AI people largely overlap, you realize that not being invited on the amazing special VIP cruise is a good thing. Think about for a moment that the promises of artificial intelligence are invoking in you, and ask yourself how confident you are that these emotions aren’t just being exploited to boost some numbers or increase the price of a company on the secondary market. Being left behind is good.
Technical Debt
Take a moment to think about all the technical debt, legacy, history, or whatever you prefer to call it that exists at your organization. I know artificial intelligence is promising to help you sort all of this out, but once you realize that the promise of artificial intelligence is being touted for fixing all the problems with the environment, government spending, curing cancer, and any other problems we face. Do you think it will really do this, or do you think that artificial intelligence is likely to become just the next layer of technical debt or the enterprise legacy we are ashamed of or running from when we switch to the the next company. If artificial intelligence falls short of expectations, will your enterprise be able to unwind and recover from this round of technical debt? APIs brought the potential for simplicity and transparency to your operations, helping you strengthen your awareness of what your enterprise offers-—is AI doing this already?
Internal Voice
Have you talked to people across your team about artificial intelligence and what this means for the APIs you produce and consume? Have you reach across teams to talk about what this means? I am not saying that your teams will be pro AI or anti AI, but I know that talking to your teams and aligning your inner voice with what others think is needed will be useful. Maybe your leadership and teams are all in on artificial intelligence and are ready to move on from what APIs have brought to your approach to technology and business. Maybe there isn’t enough trust within your enterprise to have these conversations. Regardless, validating your internal voice with the reality that exists or may be unfolding across your enterprise will play an important role in the decisions you make and whether you are aligned with the noise happening right now or if you can continue investing in your own signal and value when it comes to technology.
Internal Capacity
You should be investing in your own internal capacity, no matter what path you choose. Understanding your team’s skills and abilities and continuing to invest in those skills and abilities is where you should be investing. If you have a mandate to prioritize artificial intelligence over developing APIs I am guessing that building internal capacity is not a priority. It is because these things are related. Artificial intelligence is not about your skills or your teams skills. Artificial intelligence is not about investing in your capacity, it is about strengthening someone else’s capacity. APIs are often talked about in AI circles as being static, because it is because they are about your capacity as an individual or team to design, develop, and sustain the digital resources you need to do business. AI is considered dynamic because it is about extracting that internal capacity and training models to do what you do, and abstract anything that isn’t a priority—which includes you.
Your Platform
API services and tooling have gotten more extractive and exploitative over the years with all roads leading to the cloud and building the platform of the latest technology company. Think of the power that Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft have accumulated over the last decade. Artificial Intelligence is the ultimately trojan horse for you to continue providing the digital resources and capabilities these technology companies need to dominate. How many of the services and tooling you use to operate your API infrastructure today is commercial vs open-source? How much of your platform do you control vs depending on other companies to make happen. It is find to use commercial services and tooling if more than 50% of your platform is within your control, but if more of your operations exists on someone else’s platform and is only available through someone else’s model—where dos that leave you?
Stay the Course
In the end, stay the course you are on. If your leadership has gone all on in on the AI train—-there is your course. However, if they haven’t. Think deeply about three the source of all the noise and chatter is coming from and properly think about what it means to be left behind. Be honest with yourself about how much technical debt you have within your enterprise and where the next waves of this debt will come from. Then listen to your inner voice and do the work to have conversations with other teams across domains within your enterprise, while investing in your internal capacity. Make sure you are building your platform and not just moving your operations onto someone else’s platform. Do the work on your own strategy, and make it your own. Do the work to have a robust toolbox of tactics your teams can use to keep things moving forward and aligned with your strategy. Then stay the course. Run your business like the S&P 500 which has continued to deliver 9.1% returns since 1956. Slow and steady.
Do me a favor and shut off social media for a week or maybe two. Don’t even sneak a peak into what is happening. Just stay off it for a couple of weeks. Assess how you feel after some time away. That noise. That loud wind. That feeling of motion. That feeling that you are being left behind. It all begins to fade after a bit. The urgency changes. Make sure the urgency is all yours and not someone else’s. This is a serious moment we find ourselves in when it comes to the business, technology, and politics of APIs which power all of the desktop, web, mobile, device, network, and artificial intelligence applications across every company, organization, institution, and government agency. It is not a time for an irrational and follow the crowd or trend mentality. Make sure you have a clear head, and you are listening to your API voice, and not the API noise.
