Marco Palladino, CTO/Co-Founder of Kong Inc, discusses the evolution of APIs and the need for integration of AI APIs. He introduces the concept of AI Gateway, its features, and the role of APIs in driving AI use cases. They also discuss the development of an open-source AI gateway on Kong gateway with support for various providers and future plans.
APIs are crucial for integrating AI into applications and enabling AI to interact with the real world.
The AI gateway serves as a central platform service that empowers developers to leverage AI while maintaining governance and compliance.
Deep dives
APIs and the Intersection with AI
One of the main points discussed in this podcast episode is the intersection between APIs and AI. The hosts emphasize that APIs are the underlying fabric of the digital world, powering the interface between businesses and users. With the rise of AI, APIs are crucial for integrating AI into applications and enabling AI to interact with the real world. The discussion focuses on the challenges and opportunities of combining AI and APIs, including the need for developers to be more productive when using AI and the importance of ensuring responsible AI usage with proper governance and compliance measures. Kong's AI gateway is introduced as a tool designed to address these needs by providing deeper insight into AI traffic, allowing for the management and orchestration of AI models, and enabling organizations to establish a playbook for AI adoption.
Evolution of API Marketplaces
The podcast also touches on the evolution of API marketplaces and how they have shaped the API industry. The speakers highlight the shift from APIs being seen as nice-to-have additions to becoming essential for businesses, particularly with the rise of mobile applications and the transition to microservices. They discuss the challenges organizations face in managing and maintaining a growing number of APIs, which can lead to duplication and scalability issues. The conversation emphasizes the importance of treating APIs as products, following a product lifecycle approach, and curating a curated set of APIs to provide a more manageable and streamlined experience. The significance of service mesh and AI as driving factors for API adoption is also mentioned.
The Role of AI Gateway
The concept of an AI gateway is introduced as an evolution of the API gateway. The AI gateway aims to help organizations effectively integrate and manage AI within their applications. It provides features that enhance developer productivity and ensure responsible AI usage. These features include the ability to seamlessly switch between different AI model providers, centralized management of AI credentials, and observability metrics for monitoring AI traffic. The AI gateway is positioned as a service within the service mesh, focusing on providing deep L7 AI capabilities for application traffic. The podcast highlights Kong's AI gateway as a solution built on top of Kong gateway, offering a consolidated platform to address AI-related challenges and establish best practices for AI adoption.
Standardization and Control for AI Practices
The discussion underscores the importance of creating a standardized and controlled approach to AI adoption within organizations. By providing developers with a playbook and a set of pre-approved prompts, organizations can empower developers to be more productive and agile in leveraging AI without compromising on governance and compliance requirements. The AI gateway serves as a central platform service that IT teams can offer to development teams, ensuring that AI usage is tracked, monitored, and compliant. The podcast emphasizes the need for organizations to find the right balance between developer agility and organizational control, recognizing that responsible AI usage is essential for maintaining customer trust and data security.
Marco Palladino (@subnetmarco, CTO/Co-Founder @thekonginc) talks about the evolution of APIs, the need for consolidation and integration of AI APIs, and introduces the AI Gateway.
Topic 1 - Welcome to the show. Before we dive into today’s discussion, tell us a little bit about your background at Kong and prior to Kong.
Topic 2 - Now that the world is obsessed with AI and AI Models, what roles do APIs continue to play for applications?
Topic 3 - You’ve lived through the API marketplace days. Do you see a lot of differences between API marketplaces and model marketplaces (e.g. like HuggingFace)?
Topic 4 - You’ve talked recently about the concept of an AI Gateway, somewhat as an evolution of an API Gateway. Walk us through this new concept.
Topic 5 - API Gateways can provide a lot of protection for known things by looking into various headers, security keys, and packet data. Can you imagine AI Gateways being able to have insights into model data to do things like Prompt Control, Hallucination Control, etc.?
Topic 6 - We’ve seen the merging of API Gateways (North/South) and Service Mesh (East/West) traffic as new application patterns emerged. Do you think we’ll see new traffic patterns again with AI traffic and AI model interactions?
