Many enterprises are facing significant challenges in managing APIs due to development teams using various tooling and platforms as well as the expansion of different API types like event-driven APIs. In this episode of TFiR: Let’s Talk, Linus Hakansson, Field CTO of Gravitee, talks about the challenges of managing APIs in today’s world and what sets Gravitee apart from other big players like Amazon, Google, and Oracle. He says, “At Gravitee, we are treating those APIs as first-class citizens delivering tooling that helps organizations manage all types of APIs effectively.”

API connectivity and its importance in the modern world

• Hakansson gives us an overview of APIs and the role they play in the modern world. He talks about how Gravitee is helping enterprises manage and secure APIs.

API management challenges in modern enterprises

• Hakansson talks about the new types of APIs such as event-driven APIs and how Gravitee provides tooling for security, documentation, and discovery of these new types of APIs.
• Hakansson discusses the challenges of managing development teams in modern enterprises where teams may use various tools and platforms. If enterprises have a central platform team that is responsible for the overall governance, individual teams may still struggle to put everything under a centralized platform.
• Central platform teams need to balance governance and enablement while dealing with decentralized development teams working with different tools and platforms.

Gartner Magic Quadrant and API management

• Having been named in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for API management as a visionary, Hakansson explains what sets Gravitee apart from other big vendors like Amazon, Google, and Oracle.
• Hakansson highlights Gravitee’s top scores in critical capabilities which he believes is due to the company’s ability to treat different APIs with the same tooling, focusing on event-driven APIs and AI technologies.
• Amazon and Microsoft have both invested in API solutions but they are not primarily an API management vendor. Hakansson explains why a specialized vendor like Gravitee is more innovative and has a stronger opinion of where the API market is going.

API management and Generative AI

• Hakansson feels that API management needs to look at generative AI  (GenAI) from three perspectives: GenAI could automate API creation for consumers, removing the custom work by providers.
• AI may also help accelerate API providers getting APIs to market that consumers want, using prompts and natural language to create the APIs.
• API management might also play a role in protecting and governing the LLMs.

Roadmap for Gravitee

• Gravitee is focusing this year on its API platform, Federation, which allows for a unified developer portal with discoverability across multiple vendors’ APIs like Amazon, Microsoft, and Gravitee.
• Other key focuses include AI and GenAI to augment the platform and provide new use cases for customers.

Guest: Linus Hakansson (LinkedIn)
Company: Gravitee (Twitter)
Show: Let’s Talk

This summary was written by Emily Nicholls.