In the modern era, APIs have exploded in their popularity, powering absolutely everything we interact with on a daily basis (whether we know it or not). Maintaining their coherence and functionality has become, to say the least, a difficult task for developers and engineering leaders. As the API landscape continues to grow increasingly complex, the absence of robust testing and comprehensive documentation can lead to a cascade of issues, resulting in downstream pain for both developers and end-users alike. However, there is a silver lining on the horizon: harnessing the power of AI to help write API tests and documentation, ensuring seamless integration, improved developer experiences, and ultimately, greater efficiency in API-driven development workflows. Join us as we delve into the transformative potential of AI in shaping the future of API testing and documentation, paving the way for a more streamlined and effective development ecosystem.

1. All rights reserved by Postman Inc
AI-Powered API
Testing &
Documentation
Jamie White
Strategic Solutions Architect

2. More than 40,000
developers, testers and API
professionals responded.
THE WORLD’S LARGEST SURVEY ON APIS

3. 43% of respondents
identified as Full Stack or
Backend Developer.
Only 8% identified as QA.
FULLSTACK AND BACKEND DEVELOPERS

4. 92% expect investment in
APIs to remain at least the
same or increase over the
next 12 months.
KEY INSIGHT #1 - INVESTMENT IN APIS IS GROWING

5. 78% of leaders prioritised
quality of solutions.
KEY INSIGHT #2 - QUALITY IS KING
64% prioritised speed of
delivery.
33% prioritised cost
reduction.

6. Prioritises APIs at the
beginning of the software
development process.
APIs then become the
building blocks for other
products and services.
WHAT IS API-FIRST?

7. 75% agreed that API-first
companies are more
productive, create better
software, and integrate
faster with partners.
KEY INSIGHT #3 - TREND TOWARDS API-FIRST

8. 76% of API leaders view their
APIs as Products.
Three quarters of API
leaders have API Products
that generate revenue.
KEY INSIGHT #4 - APIS AS A PRODUCT

9. API first leaders were 2x as
likely to be managing too
many APIs and microservices.
KEY INSIGHT #5 - MICROSERVICES ARE HARD

10. When developers leave,
outdated documentation is
the biggest gap.
KEY INSIGHT #6 - OUTDATED DOCUMENTATION

11. 60% of respondents are
using generative AI in their
work.
KEY INSIGHT #8 - GENERATIVE AI

12. ● Investment in APIs continues to grow.
● Quality of solutions is the most
important attribute.
● API First companies have more
frequent deployments with fewer
issues.
● Microservices are hard to manage.
● Documentation is the biggest gap.
● Generative AI is being used, and is a
desire for developers.
SUMMARY

13. All rights reserved by Postman Inc
AI-Powered API
Testing &
Documentation

14. API Producer & Consumer Lifecycles
Producer
Lifecycle
Consumer
Lifecycle

15. API Testing

16. API Testing - Challenges
● Writing tests is often manual and requires
coding expertise
○ Tests are frequently coded by hand, or
scaffolded without context or incorrectly
○ Certain technical skill set is needed
○ Time, time, time
● Testing is rushed and/or causes delayed
shipments
○ Major time crunch at the end of release cycles
to complete testing
○ Lack of test coverage increases chances of
releasing with bugs

17. API Testing - Consequences
● Increased technical debt
● More bugs sneak through
● Less secure APIs
● Quality assurance degradation

18. API Documentation

19. Documentation - Challenges
● Documentation is missing or
incomplete
○ Consumers struggle to understand
poorly documented APIs
○ Rely on domain knowledge of key
individuals
● Writing documentation consumes
valuable time
○ Developers need to take attention
away from writing code
○ Updates are manual, delayed, and
inconsistent
○ Documentation is not static, always
evolving based on the code

20. Documentation - Consequences
● Consumers experience difficulty
using unfamiliar APIs
○ Integration, reusability, and
monetization suffer when APIs are
not well documented
● Time to productivity for new
developers is slow
○ Issues in requests are causing
frequent error responses from APIs
○ New joiners experience a learning
curve to use a new toolset

21. Initial Conclusions

22. Time consuming
Never ending task
Incredibly important
Impactful outcomes
Not everyone’s cup of tea
INITIAL CONCLUSIONS

23. What do we do?

24. Introducing Postbot

25. Postbot is your
AI Assistant
“As our technologies have improved,
so have our abilities.”

26. Postbot’s goal is to increase developer productivity by assisting
developers with API testing and documentation, and helping
debug requests.

27. API Testing - Solutions
● Streamline test development with Postbot
auto-complete
○ Describe tests in natural language
○ Save time writing test scripts, have Postbot do it
for you
○ Allow less technical users to contribute to
building test suites
● Low code approach to scaffold tests
○ Single click to generate initial tests for each
request in a collection
○ Skip debugging tests, prompt Postbot to fix
them for you

28. Documentation - Solutions
● Increase developer productivity
○ Focus more time on making APIs, less time on documenting them
○ Rely less on developer expertise, more on comprehensive documentation
○ Retain knowledge when key players leave
● Increase API Consumption
○ Reduce time to first API call and increase the rate of success consumers
experience when calling your APIs
○ Auto-generate visualizations to make API responses more approachable to
non technical audiences
● API Lifecycle Management
○ Documentation and testing are essential throughout the API lifecycle, from design
and development to deployment and maintenance. Comprehensive documentation
and thorough testing facilitate versioning, deprecation, and retirement of APIs,
ensuring smooth transitions and minimal disruption for API consumers.

29. Let’s try a live demo….

30. I am loving the Postbot feature
to generate tests. You have
reduced my work by 60%. AI
generated 105 lines worth of
assertions in seconds. Thank
you, thank you, thank you!
Anonymous
Feedback form submission
“

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Q & A
Thank You