The new version of POSTMAN supports AI API development through AI

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The 11th version of API management platform Postman provides better support for AI-enabled APIs and new tools for communicating with API partners.

Translated from New Postman Release Supports AI API Development With... AI by Loraine Lawson.

Artificial Intelligence may be the wave of the future, but the use of AI as a development tool depends on APIs. This is why better API management will be key to the successful development of AI, said Abhinav Asthana, co-founder and CEO of API management platform Postman .

“We believe APIs are going to become even more important,” Asthana told The New Stack, adding that AI is a platform shift that will impact every piece of software. AI also requires rethinking how APIs are used and designed; APIs need to be understandable by AI bots and very easy to understand and integrate, he explained.

“The AI bot must understand the nature of the API,” Asthana said. "APIs need to be well documented, they need to be well understood because you can't just rely on the skills of the developer to understand it inside out. Bots - as smart as they are - they're still just bots."

He added that poorly designed APIs can cause problems for AI. For example, an API might open data to bots that the organization doesn't want exposed.

"If they misunderstand it and incorrectly do something you don't want them to do, you could be putting the business at risk," he said. "In some ways, you now have to make the API understandable for a new set of use cases while also thinking about the security and design aspects of the API to make sure your enterprise is protected. I don't think that's a debate anymore. Yes, you need an API. Without an API, the robot can't do anything."

Bots for AI API

Postman is betting that the tool used to improve AI APIs is AI itself. According to the company's State of API report , 60% of API professionals report using generative AI to find errors in code, generate code, and encode instructions. Gartner estimates that in just two years, more than 80% of enterprises will be using generative AI APIs or models—a staggering increase considering that last year the number was less than 5%.

To make this future a reality, the API management platform created a dedicated AI bot that is trained to help developers build better APIs for AI. The AI is called Postbot, and it can help with test generation, documentation, debugging, data visualization and developer workflow when developing APIs . It is generally available in Postman 11 version, which was released earlier this month.

One challenge for developers using AI APIs is that they should support "flows" of streaming information to create AI conversations. Typically, REST APIs are designed to be executed once, he said. To support AI bots’ streaming capabilities and the fact that AI bots can “build context over time,” more and more developers are turning to WebSockets and GraphQL . Postman plans to invest in more mature tools in the future, he added. He added that Postman is language and architecture agnostic, so it supports REST, SOAP , GraphQL and other types of APIs.

"Postbot makes everything you want to do faster in terms of prototyping, documentation, testing, presentations, it gives you a first draft, it lets you get the job done," he said.

He added that this is also a good example to prove his point, as the bots themselves require smart infrastructure and well-designed APIs to support conversational interfaces. Unlike copilots, which focus on auto-completion of code , Postbot is designed to leverage internal resources and support conversations about API development.

"We've put a lot of effort into improving the accuracy of its response," he said. "We have various models working in the background. We can reference data in your Postman workspace, it can reference documentation, so it's really customized for API work, and I feel like the future of bots will be more like Postbot, not just Just an autocomplete tool."

Workspace for collaborating on the API

Postman v11 also extends support for external partner-facing APIs, which is one of the major pain points in API development. Asthana said that until recently, the tool of choice for enterprises with multiple partner APIs has been email and sometimes Slack.

“We were surprised to find that every company had a bunch of partner APIs, and there were usually more of them than the public APIs,” he said. “Then we talked to them — OK, when you have to reach consensus with your partners , how do you use these APIs, or do partners come to you and tell you, hey, this is something that I want or is working or not working?"

He said organizations have found that developer portals are not suitable for collaborating on APIs. As a workaround, he said, customers have been creating Postman collections — which enable developers to group requests with different method types and organize them into folders or subfolders — and then communicate them via email or Slack Share these collections with partner organizations.

Abhivan Asthana, co-founder and CEO of API management platform Postman, said: “APIs need to be well documented, they need to be well understood, because you can’t just rely on the skills of the developer to understand it inside out. Robots — though They're smart - but they're still just robots."

He pointed out that this is not the best option for enterprises that may support more than 1,000 API partners. Postman launched a partner workspace for enterprises in 2022, but this month Postman expanded the product to distribute the Postman API collection to multiple external partners in its Enterprise and Professional plans. The company says the new support is expected to speed up development times by reducing the hassle of API collaboration.

Version 11 also adds a new method of communicating updates by integrating a feed that lets internal and external customers know when the API has been updated. This helps eliminate the risk of consumers using outdated APIs. The workspace also allows developers to communicate about APIs with multiple API partners at once, eliminating the need to send multiple emails.

"The goal is the same as with a public API or a private API, we're reducing time to value, we're reducing time to first call, and you can invite all partners in a single workspace or you can create multiple workspaces for them," he said. "This feature came in large part from feedback from our enterprise customers who found it difficult to manage their partnerships."

Postman published a blog post detailing all the updates in version 11 . Other developer-focused feature highlights include:

Added a VSCode extension that allows programmers to develop and test APIs directly in their IDE ;
Ability to change scripts once and use them anywhere, using a feature called Package Library , which is used to store frequently used scripts and tests as packages;
Use Postman Vault to securely reuse sensitive data in HTTP collections, environments, and requests, or integrate with third-party vaults you already use, including AWS, Azure, and HashiCorp ; and
EU developers can use Postman to gain early access to Postman EU data residency, which is currently invite-only.

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