How Better APIs Unlock Faster, Better AI | Erik Wilde (Jentic)

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Erik Wilde is a legend in the API space. He's had a monumental impact on how many of us think about API design, governance, and digital evolution today.

Erik spent many years at Axway where he worked closely with some of the largest organizations in the world on API strategy and governance. Today, he is an OAI Ambassador at the OpenAPI Initiative, runs his own YouTube channel “Getting APIs to Work”, and continues to help organizations align APIs, business capabilities, and real-world outcomes.

At Jentic, Erik is now focused on a question many teams are struggling with:

"How do you make large, complex API landscapes actually work in an AI-driven world, without breaking everything you already have?"

In this episode, Erik joins us for an honest conversation about APIs, AI readiness, and why most enterprises are still thinking about API design at the wrong level. We dig into what breaks when agents meet real-world API landscapes, why fine-grained APIs do more harm than good for AI, and how intent-driven API orchestration is the missing layer between legacy systems and the future of intelligent automation.

Hosted by Stefan Avram and Jens Neuse, this episode blends deep technical insight with real-world enterprise experience, covering everything from API design and governance to AI bubbles, agent architectures, and why most API problems are organizational problems, not technical ones.

In this conversation, we get into:
Why API design and governance still matter more than ever, especially in the age of AI
What “AI-ready APIs” actually mean, and what most teams get wrong
Why many AI projects fail before they even get started
Why fine-grained APIs overwhelm agents and LLMs
Why narrow REST APIs are the wrong interface for AI, and what should sit on top instead
What it really takes for startups to earn trust with large enterprises

If you have ever worked with APIs at scale, struggled with governance, or wondered how AI really fits into existing enterprise systems, you’ll enjoy this one.

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HOW TO FIND ERIK

Find Erik Wilde and "Getting APIs To Work" here:    / @erikwilde  
Erik's LinkedIn:   / erikwilde  

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Chapter Markers
00:00:00 50,000 APIs, 500,000 Endpoints
00:00:32 Erik Wilde and his impact on APIs
00:02:08 Why engineers stay in the API ecosystem
00:04:28 AI bubble vs dotcom bubble
00:06:17 Why Erik joined Jentic
00:08:14 Deterministic code vs LLM-based systems
00:09:44 When and why to use less AI
00:11:55 Startups vs enterprises in API platforms
00:15:05 Why most AI projects fail
00:19:22 Why API design cannot be automated
00:22:00 APIs as business capabilities
00:24:13 Conway’s Law and organizational APIs
00:30:12 What AI-ready APIs really mean
00:32:03 Why fine-grained APIs break AI agents
00:36:27 MCP, tools, and scalability limits
00:40:25 Knowledge management, Intent-Driven Design, API semantics
00:47:18 Improving legacy APIs without rewrites
00:49:11 Orchestration layers instead of raw APIs
00:52:31 The future of APIs, AI, and agents
00:58:18 Explaining APIs to non-technical audiences
00:59:03 Common API design mistakes
01:00:20 Where to find Erik Wilde

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