apidays Munich 2025 - Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World, Andreas Siegel (pentacor)

Bingo! Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World
Andreas Siegel, Software Engineer / IT Architect at pentacor

apidays Munich 2025 - Accelerate AI Use Cases with APIs
July 2 & 3, 2025

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Transcript

1. PENTACOR.DE IT ARCHITECTURE APIS & DATA PRODUCTS CLOUD–NATIVE SOFTWARE ARCHITECTING YOUR BUSINESS Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World What It Takes to Make APIs Discoverable in the Age of AI!
2. Hello World! 👋 Andreas Siegel IT Architect / Developer andreas.siegel@pentacor.de pentacor.link/andreas I like everything the most!
3. § ChatGPT guesses your endpoints § Claude scans APIs for OpenAPI definitions § 8,000+ MCP servers connect AI with tools and APIs Meanwhile… 03.07.2025 PENTACOR | Bingo! Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World 4 The AI revolution isn’t coming. It’s already here.
4. § perceive and process § act autonomously § are goal-oriented and adaptive AI Agents… 03.07.2025 PENTACOR | Bingo! Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World 5
5. 03.07.2025 PENTACOR | Bingo! Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World 6
6. Revisiting the Classics
7. 03.07.2025 PENTACOR | Bingo! Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World 14 “Old” Standards, New Relevance OpenAPI – Structured Descriptions HATEOAS – Navigable Semantics APIs.json – Machine Discovery
8. PENTACOR | Bingo! Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World 15 OpenAPI – Making it AI-Ready Bad for AI paths: /users: get: operationId: getUsers summary: Get users Good for AI paths: /customers: get: operationId: searchCustomers summary: >- Search for customers using name or email description: >- Use this when user asks to: - "find John" - "get customer example@mail.com" parameters: - name: query description: >- Customer name or email. Supports partial matching. schema: type: string examples: byName: value: "John Doe" summary: "Search by customer name" 03.07.2025 Specification: https://spec.openapis.org/oas/latest.html
9. 03.07.2025 PENTACOR | Bingo! Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World 16 AI Navigation – HATEOAS { "account": { "id": "12345", "balance": 1000.00, "_links": { "self": { "href": "/accounts/12345” }, "transfer": { "href": "/accounts/12345/transfers", "type": "application/json", "title": "Transfer money to another account” }, "statements": { "href": "/accounts/12345/statements” } } } } Limitations § No HTTP method information (GET? POST?) § No Parameter Schemas (What data to send?) AI has to guess the interaction pattern Discovery intended for “smart” clients
10. 03.07.2025 PENTACOR | Bingo! Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World 17 AI Navigation – OpenAPI Link Objects responses: '200’: links: transferMoney: operationId: createTransfer parameters: accountId: $response.body#/account/id description: "Transfer money from this account" Benefits § Explicit HTTP methods § Parameter mapping § Schema validation § Operation context HATEOAS Philosophy + OpenAPI Structure = AI-ready Navigation https://spec.openapis.org/oas/latest.html#link-object
11. 03.07.2025 PENTACOR | Bingo! Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World 18 AI Discovery – apis.json { "aid": "company.com:api-inventory", "name": "Company APIs", "specificationVersion": "0.18", "apis": [ { "aid": "company.com:payments-api", "name": "Payments API", "humanURL": "http://company.com", "baseURL": "https://api.company.com/payments", "properties": [ {"type": "OpenAPI", "url": "/openapi.yml"}, {"type": "Documentation", "url": "/docs"}, {"type": "PostmanCollection", "url": "/postman.json"}, {"type": "JSONSchema", "url": "/json-schema.json"}, {"type": "OpenAIPluginManifest", "url": "/openai.yml"} ], "common": [ {"type": "Signup", "url": "https://company.com/signup"}, {"type": ”Login", "url": "https://company.com/login"} ] } ] } Benefits § Automatic API Discovery § Rich Metadata § Standardized Format § AI-native Support https://apisjson.org/ sitemap.xml for APIs
12. What’s New?
13. 03.07.2025 PENTACOR | Bingo! Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World 20 Emerging Standards MCP – Access to Data and Tools Arazzo Workflows A2A & ACP – Agent Protocols Missing link between AI and your systems API recipies, not just ingredients for collaborating agents
14. MCP – Model Context Protocol 03.07.2025 PENTACOR | Bingo! Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World 21 USB-C for AI § One server works with different AI models and clients § Future-proof integrations § Growing ecosystem § But: still evolving and production patterns maturing https://modelcontextprotocol.io/ ≈8,000 servers End the AI plugin hell – build once, deploy everywhere * supporting MCP
15. Arazzo – API Workflow Specification 03.07.2025 PENTACOR | Bingo! Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World 22 Recipe book for API workflows https://www.openapis.org/arazzo Benefits § Deterministic workflows instead of AI guesswork § Document business processes for humans and machines § Standardized workflow description format § Remove ambiguity from complex integrations
16. A2A – Agent2Agent Protocol § Structured Agent Cards § Interaction via JSON-RPC § Task-Oriented Communication https://goo.gle/a2a Agent Protocols 03.07.2025 PENTACOR | Bingo! Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World 23 ACP – Agent Communication Protocol § Agent Manifests as Offline Metadata § REST-based Interaction § Natural Language Communication https://agentcommunicationprotocol.dev Specialized agents working together Pragmatic REST-native agent communcation Structured task-centric agent communication
17. 03.07.2025 PENTACOR | Bingo! Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World 27
18. 03.07.2025 PENTACOR | Bingo! Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World 28 Putting it all together… User/ Client System OpenAPI Spec HATEOAS Navigation apis.json Metadata statically specifies API enables dynamic interaction acts as resource and API index AI/LLM supports user Arazzo MCP defines business workflows A2A/ACP makes data & tools accesibble initiates interaction autonomously uses assists API Space AI Space
19. Takeaways
20. The Paradox of AI-Ready APIs: The more autonomous our consumers become, the more explicit our descriptions need to be. Corollary: The better your AI documentation, the better your human documentation becomes. 03.07.2025 PENTACOR | Bingo! Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World 31 The best AI-ready API is one that's still great for humans.
21. Your Mission: § Start with what you have (enhance existing OpenAPI) § Add discoverability (APIs.json, HATEOAS) § Think workflows (Arazzo, task orientation) § Prepare for agents (MCP, A2A/ACP when ready) Future-Proofing Your APIs 03.07.2025 PENTACOR | Bingo! Making Sense of AI-Ready APIs in a Buzzword World 32 Now go forth and make your APIs less human-dependent! and experiment with
22. Andreas Siegel andreas.siegel@pentacor.de pentacor.link/andreas Thank you! Questions?