APIs for Agents: Rethinking API Programs in the MCP Era

As API programs mature, a familiar gap emerges: some teams operate with strong standards, reusable platforms, and clear governance,  while others rely on informal guidance and best-effort consistency. That disparity becomes a real risk at scale, even if it feels manageable when API consumers are known systems and human-built integrations.

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) changes the shape of the problem. APIs aren’t just consumed by human developers anymore — they’re consumed by tools and autonomous agents. That shift forces API programs to answer uncomfortable questions:

• What does an “API product” mean when the primary consumer is an agent?
• How do you introduce governance changes without slowing delivery to a crawl?
• How do you roll out fixes, evolving controls, and improvements across 200+ APIs without creating endless upgrade work for teams?

This talk explores how to evolve API programs for MCP-era workloads, using platform capabilities and FINOS Architecture as Code to improve both speed and security.

You’ll learn practical ways to:

• Build self-service guardrails that help teams move fast without turning governance into central gatekeeping.
• Codify architectural patterns to define and enforce security standards, automate compliance checks, detect drift, and roll out changes safely.
• Scale innovation reliably across large API estates — reducing fragmentation, limiting manual coordination, and keeping security outcomes measurable.
• Attendees will leave with practical patterns, examples, and an approach they can apply immediately to modernize governance for agent-driven consumption — without turning their API program into bureaucracy.