Thought Leaders from SmartBear to Share Practical Insights on API Strategy at apidays New York

SOMERVILLE, Mass - May 7, 2025 - SmartBear, a leading provider of software quality and visibility solutions, will take the stage at apidays New York on May 14–15, 2025, with three expert-led sessions exploring API design, governance, and scalability. Bridges Smith, VP of Product Management – AI and Platform Services; Frank Kilcommins, Principal API Technical Evangelist; and Yousaf Nabi, Developer Relations, will share actionable strategies for building resilient, high-impact APIs in today’s AI-driven software landscape, where there is no AI without API management.  

WHAT & 

WHEN: SmartBear at apidays New York:  

• -“AI Will Decide Your API’s Fate,” presented by Bridges Smith, May 15, 11:15 a.m. ET 

• -“Getting the Right API Faster: DX and AX with Example Mapping, OpenAPI, and Arazzo,” presented by Frank Kilcommins, May 15, 2:50 p.m. ET 

• -“Graceful Service Evolution, Driven by Open Standards, Guided by Contracts,” presented by Yousaf Nabi, May 15, 4:30 p.m. ET 

• -Visit SmartBear in Booth #18 

WHERE: Convene 360 Madison Avenue, Midtown East, New York, NY 

In his session, “AI Will Decide Your API’s Fate,” Bridges will explore how APIs serve as the infrastructure behind AI’s ability to scale and deliver real-time value. As AI adoption accelerates, it also introduces challenges like API sprawl. Bridges will demonstrate how AI itself can help solve these challenges, offering practical, real-world techniques for scaling API management without sacrificing quality or governance. 

Bridges draws on 25+ years of experience in product development, machine learning, and AI. He has a passion for solving complex challenges with creative engineering and UX design, from pioneering early speech recognition and virtual assistant applications to delivering data insights through generative AI.  

As AI-augmented tools accelerate API creation, the risk of misaligned intent grows. In “Getting the Right API Faster: DX and AX with Example Mapping, OpenAPI, and Arazzo,” Frank will explore how human-centered techniques like Example Mapping, drawn from Behavior-Driven Development (BDD), can guide API design with clarity and empathy, even as AI plays a larger role. He’ll show how aligning machine-readable formats like OpenAPI and Arazzo can improve developer and agent experiences, helping teams deliver APIs that meet real needs, not just speed. 

Frank has over 15 years of experience with roles spanning from software engineering to enterprise architecture. His mission is to inspire, engage, and support the API community and SmartBear customers across the API development lifecycle and management space. Before joining SmartBear, Frank’s roles focused on API-led digital transformations and architecture modernization within multi-national enterprises. 

In Yousaf’s talk, “Graceful Service Evolution, Driven by Open Standards, Guided by Contracts,” he’ll explore how contract testing has evolved to support scalable API growth and why open standards like OpenAPI are critical to building resilient APIs. He will address common challenges like versioning, managing breaking changes, and combating provider and consumer drift, offering practical ways to future-proof APIs using leading open source tools like Spotlight Spectral, Pact, and Swagger. 

Yousaf has worked across industries since starting his career nearly two decades ago, helping users navigate their way around open source communities. As an API Evangelist, he helps spread API technical knowledge wherever he goes. 

Apidays NYC is the leading conference where developers, architects, and business leaders explore how APIs power the design, management, and scaling of AI projects. For more information, visit: https://www.apidays.global/new-york/