Blackbird is a new product by Ambassador designed to enhance API management by reducing errors, improving consistency, and speeding up time to market (TTM) for developers. In this video, Lori Marshall, VP of Product at Ambassador, discusses some of the key challenges developers are facing and how their new product, Blackbird, is streamlining API development and addressing developer pain points. He says, “Blackbird is going to transform API management and a couple of areas looking at those problem areas that our devs are facing today.”

What are the key developer challenges and how is Blackbird addressing them?

• Marshall talks about the company’s decision to change its name from Ambassador Labs to Ambassador. He discusses their products: Telepresence and Edge Stack, which aim to enhance the developer experience by bridging local and remote environments.
• Despite technological changes, core problems like silos remain, which are further exacerbated by remote work. Marshall stresses the need for improved quality and efficiency in development under resource constraints.
• Ambassador’s new product offering, Blackbird, aims to improve API management, reduce errors, enhance consistency, and speed up time to market.
• Marshall discusses the shift in focus towards developers and their challenges, highlighting Blackbird’s features like API mocking, testing, and deployment, which address developers’ constraints and enhance productivity.

How Blackbird’s key features are enhancing developer productivity

• Marshall explains how Blackbird fits into developers’ environments. It will initially provide hosted environments for developers to use, but in the future, it will allow developers to bring their own environments to address security concerns.
• Blackbird uses AI to generate API specifications and boilerplate code, helping developers save time and improve efficiency.
• Marshall highlights Blackbird’s focus on reducing time to value (TTV) with features like rapid API mocking, aiming to save developers significant time.
• Marshall explains Blackbird’s integration with other Ambassador products and its usage-based pricing model, inviting feedback from the beta community.
• Ambassador’s main focus is primarily on enhancing Blackbird, integrating it with GitHub, and enabling customers to bring their environments to the platform.

Guest: Lori Marshall (LinkedIn)
Company: Ambassador (Twitter)
Show: Let’s Talk

This summary was written by Emily Nicholls.