Because it was based in 2014, India-based Postman has made a reputation for itself as one of the crucial well-liked platforms for constructing and utilizing APIs, with 500,000 organizations now utilizing the service. Like with so many different SaaS companies, although, its valuation at the moment is reportedly down from its $5.6 billion excessive in 2021. However the firm is now leaping head-first into the AI house with the launch of an AI agent builder that mixes massive language fashions and the Postman API platform, in addition to a visible editor that brings the 2 collectively to assist even non-developers construct and check AI brokers.
At first, leaping into AI brokers could seem to be an odd alternative for a corporation like Postman, however as Postman CEO and co-founder Abhinav Asthana famous after I talked to him forward of the agent builder’s launch, to be helpful, these brokers must work together with all kinds of companies — and the way in which to try this is thru APIs.
“Our clients truly began asking us about this. ‘Okay, this agent factor is type of arising. What are you guys doing about it?’ And we regarded on the patterns wherein they’re stringing this collectively. Whether or not they’re utilizing homegrown methods or they’re utilizing some third-party stuff, APIs are a key a part of it, as a result of there are two sorts of APIs: one is the LLM itself, just like the OpenAI API, or the Anthropic’s API, or possibly a homegrown API. And the second bit are instruments the agent would use. So we have been like, okay, Postman helps builders do all issues APIs and if that is rising as a sample, we should always do one thing right here,” defined Asthana.
He additionally famous {that a} rising variety of Postman customers are non-developers, who need to use the service for constructing easy, API-centric functions. “So when AI know-how began rising, we needed to check it out lots. We noticed like, ‘okay, can this be used?’ And it appears to be like like no-code, plus AI, plus brokers is an effective combo to carry collectively,” Asthana mentioned.
Postman’s API community already options an API hub with contributions from over 18,000 firms, which now, in flip, additionally permits its customers to construct AI brokers that may work together with these APIs. To make sure that these brokers work as anticipated, Postman is including testing and analysis instruments to the service to check prompts and inputs for the fashions it helps (suppose OpenAI, Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, Cohere and Meta’s Llama, for instance). It then permits customers to make use of Postman Flows, the corporate’s visible growth atmosphere, to construct these brokers and have them work together with APIs.
Proper now, Postman’s AI brokers are principally centered on enabling back-end operations. Whereas builders might use the service to energy front-end companies, Postman itself doesn’t supply any consumer interface for immediately interacting with these brokers but. Over time, this will change. “We’re all very bullish on agent software program, however I feel the modalities wherein we work together with these methods can be going to evolve,” Asthana mentioned.
Postman, after all, just isn’t the one firm on this house, however on high of getting its present API hub, Asthana additionally believes that it may well differentiate its service from others — and particularly the massive cloud suppliers — by providing a greater developer expertise. “In my view, the cloud suppliers all the time prioritize consumption of the cloud over developer expertise, and I feel they’re keen to accomplice with anybody who does truly give the correct developer expertise,” he mentioned.
The corporate remains to be determining the right way to greatest cost for this new service. Pricing, Asthana mentioned, will evolve over time because the crew works out the right way to greatest decide the worth that these brokers carry.
