Insights from eBay: How API Ecosystems Are Ushering In the Agentic Era

The evolution of intelligent agents and AI prompts is transforming APIs from basic infrastructure into the core of a new ecosystem-led growth model, driven by the demands of the agentic era. Enterprises are now focusing on strategic API governance, enhancing developer experience, and building scalable infrastructures to handle the anticipated surge in agent-driven API traffic. APIs have become crucial to the seamless digital experiences we rely on daily, facilitating interconnected workflows in various applications from ride-sharing to financial record synchronization. As the digital economy shifts from product-led to ecosystem-led growth, APIs are emerging as essential enablers, allowing third-party developers to innovate and expand markets in ways previously unimaginable. This transformation demands a new mindset in API strategy, emphasizing the importance of governance, structured validation, and developer engagement to ensure stability and scalability. As AI adoption grows, the role of APIs will become even more critical, serving as the backbone of intelligent systems that connect and create value, thus heralding the rise of the agentic internet.