Building Ecosystems for Humans and Agents: The New Consumer of APIs

For years, APIs have been designed with one primary audience in mind: developers. The focus has been on making APIs discoverable, consistent, and easy for humans to consume. But in the AI era, a new audience has arrived: AI agents. As detailed in SmartBear’s newly published AI-Enabled API Lifecycle Report, this shift demands that organizations rethink how APIs are designed, tested, and managed to serve both human developers and intelligent systems effectively. 

Agents don’t browse documentation portals, experiment in sandboxes, or submit tickets. They consume APIs directly, often chaining multiple APIs together to complete a workflow. This shift forces enterprises to rethink how they design, document, and govern their API ecosystems. 

The winners in this new landscape will be those who can serve both humans and AI agents equally well. Swagger, through Swagger Studio, Swagger Portal, and its standards-first approach, provides the connective tissue to make that possible. 

The Changing Shape of API Ecosystems 

API ecosystems have traditionally been built around three pillars: 

1. Developers who consume APIs to build apps and integrations. 

2. Partners who use APIs to expand business models and co-create solutions. 

3. Customers who benefit from the products built on those APIs. 

AI introduces a fourth pillar: agents. These autonomous or semi-autonomous systems consume APIs directly to execute tasks: anything from onboarding a customer, making payments, to analyzing risk. 

The implication is clear: ecosystems can no longer be human-only. They must be designed for hybrid audiences. 

The New API Consumer: Agents 

Unlike human developers, agents require: 

• Workflow definitions: Not just endpoints, but the intent and sequence of calls  

• Machine-readable clarity: Consistent naming, metadata, and error handling that reduce ambiguity. 

• Security and access controls: Strict governance to prevent overconsumption, scraping, or misuse. 
   

Swagger is uniquely positioned here: 

• Swagger Studio: Ensures encoding of intent and workflows and uses governed sources of truth, your API descriptions, domains and rules, grounding workflows. 

• Swagger Portal: Publishes APIs with machine-readable documentation alongside human-readable guides, ensuring agents and developers consume the same truth. 

Ecosystem Evolution in Practice 
 

Consider how industries are adapting: 

• Banking: APIs are no longer just for fintech developers. AI agents are now consuming APIs for fraud detection, underwriting, and customer engagement. 

• Insurance: Claims processing increasingly relies on AI-driven workflows in orchestrating APIs across internal and external systems. 

• Retail: AI shopping assistants are consuming product and payment of APIs directly, bypassing traditional developer integration paths. 
   

In each case, ecosystems succeed or fail based on whether APIs can serve both humans and AI agents. Swagger ensures this duality is not an afterthought, but a design principle. 

From Developer Portals to Agent Portals 
 

Traditional developer portals were built to educate humans. They featured quick starts, tutorials, and reference documents. In the AI-enabled era, portals must evolve to serve both audiences: 

• Humans need context, examples, and onboarding experiences. 

• Agents need structured metadata, workflows, and secure consumption endpoints. 
   

The Swagger Portal provides this bridge. Supporting both descriptive documentation and structured specifications, it becomes a dual-use ecosystem hub, one that human developers can navigate, and AI agents can parse automatically. 

Standards Driving Interoperability 

The rise of agents has created new interoperability challenges. Multiple MCP servers, A2A (Agent-to-Agent) protocols, and overlays are emerging to orchestrate workflows across APIs. Without standards, ecosystems risk fragmentation. 

By grounding Swaggers offerings in open-standards such as OpenAPI, it enables multiple extension points, such as evolution mechanisms via overlays and workflow orchestration ensuring APIs remain interoperable—whether consumed by a partner developer in another country, or by an AI agent running 24/7 behind the scenes. 

Competitive Advantage in Hybrid Ecosystems 
 

Why does this matter strategically? Because ecosystems are how enterprises grow. By serving both humans and agents, organizations unlock: 

• New revenue models: APIs heavily used by agents can be monetized differently than developer-first APIs. 

• Faster innovation: Agents can stitch together workflows humans might not have imagined, creating new product opportunities. 

• Deeper trust: Governance and explainability become market differentiators in ecosystems where uncertainty runs high. 

Swagger makes this possible by standardizing the way APIs are designed, documented, and shared. It ensures ecosystems don’t just scale, they scale responsibly. 

The API consumer has changed. It’s no longer just developers; it’s also AI agents. That doesn’t mean replacing human-first practices; it means augmenting them. 

With Swagger Studio and Swagger Portal, organizations can design APIs that speak to both audiences. They can publish documentation that educates developers while guiding agents. And they can govern ecosystems that are interoperable, transparent, and trustworthy. 

The future of ecosystems is hybrid. The question is: will your APIs be ready to serve both humans and agents? 

Swagger Studio, formerly known as SwaggerHub / API Hub for Design