Developers are increasingly positive about generative AI’s effects on their jobs and their companies in general, a change in a community that in the past seemed to have feared it, according to a report released this week by cloud API developer Kong.
In addition, they say APIs will play an increasingly large role in the ongoing development of AI, with the integration with AI being the most critical aspect of API management over the next one to two years.
“For businesses, integrating AI into API management is crucial for automating and optimizing operations, enhancing security, and offering more personalized user experiences,” wrote the authors of Kong’s “API Impact Report 2024.” “It can allow for real-time anomaly detection, dynamic resource adjustment for optimal performance, and innovative service development.”
In a survey of 747 IT professionals and business leaders, 92% of respondents said that AI is a priority for their businesses and 83% said that AI investments in their organizations have opened up opportunities for new products or services over the past year.
That said, a trend toward users bypassing their organizations’ policies around AI use is putting pressure on companies to put in place tools like AI gateways and data loss prevention (DLP) solutions to ensure data governance and regulatory compliance, particularly as governments are increasingly putting new laws in place to make the use and innovation of generative AI safer, according to Kong.
AI Use Guidelines are Important
The report’s authors noted that organizations and individuals are adopting AI at a much faster pace than they did with previous technological breakthroughs, “which means organizations need to move faster than ever to keep on top of the wave of AI innovation.” About 80% of developers surveyed said their organizations have AI usage guidelines or restrictions, with about 20% having none in place. About 2% said their organizations ban generative AI tools outright.
About 60% of respondents said they find ways of getting around restrictions to access the AI tools they need. However, data privacy, security, and governance also top the list – at almost 60% – of challenges faced in integrating AI services with existing microservice infrastructures.
“We’ve reached the moment where AI adoption is imperative; however, doing so strategically will be the ultimate marker of long-term success,” said Marco Palladino, Kong’s co-founder and CTO. “Our report highlights the need for infrastructure underneath AI applications that provides strong governance while enhancing AI performance.”
Warming Up to Generative AI
The company’s report echoes what other vendors have found when it comes to developers and AI. A survey late last year by Kobiton found that most mobile app developers and testers are using generative AI tools for a range of tasks and to help address challenges in developer and QA operations. In addition, they’re using the technology when they have limited financial resources or not enough skilled programmers.
In April, Docker said in a report that software engineers are increasingly relying on AI to build their applications, with use cases ranging from coding and documentation to research, troubleshooting and debugging.
Similarly, Kong’s survey found developers are warming up to generative AI, with 60% saying they are passionate about working with the fast-emerging technology and 57% saying it will make their jobs easier.
However, others are still worried about it, with 35% saying that AI adoption is moving too fast. There also is the ongoing worry about the future, with 18% believing the use of AI tools will lead to layoffs at their companies. Almost one in 10 said they don’t want to work with AI, with some believing that AI will undervalue their work or increase their workloads.
“Zooming out from personal outlook to their view on business impact, half of those surveyed say AI will enhance productivity and innovation,” the authors wrote. “26% say AI will create new positions or opportunities in their organizations.”
APIs to Take a Central Role
APIs will become increasingly important in the development and use of AI, according to Kong. The company noted that APIs in general are widely used, with 85% of Fortune 100s using them as a core part of their IT operations and almost half of developers and managers saying their companies need to be more aware of the business value APIs deliver.
They’ll also play a central role in AI, with the report’s authors writing that “APIs enable communication between humans and AI systems — as well as AI systems and other digital tools. APIs serve as the hands, eyes and ears of AI. And as AI usage increases, so will the number of APIs that enable them.”
They pointed to a Gartner prediction that by 2026, more than 30% of the increase in demand for APIs will come from AI and tools using large language models (LLMs). Beyond that, Kong predicts the value of APIs to enable AI will grow 170% by 2030.
In that same timeframe, Kong’s research says that the economic impact of APIs in the United States will reach $3.4 trillion, with the global impact hitting $17.3 trillion. Leaning on data from the International Monetary Fund on projected worldwide GDP growth and the global digital economy, the economic impact of APIs should increase from 12.7% of global GDP this year to 14% in 2030.
“[A] simple back-of-the-napkin math paints a picture of why an API strategy is so essential for organizations today: In a short time, the consumers of our websites or digital products are more likely to be AI than human,” the authors wrote. “Whether we’re using AI, training AI or having AI interact with APIs to perform operations, an API is involved. That’s why controlling the usage of AI at the interface level is an API problem.”
