Summer is nearly over in the northern hemisphere, we are three-quarters of the way through 2025, and already we’ve had great attendance at our OpenAPI Initiative (OAI) Track at Apidays New York, Helsinki, Munich, and DeveloperWeek San Francisco. We still have API:World Santa Clara, and Apidays London, and Paris to come this year, with our dedicated stage and all day track at API:World!
With all these events past and planned, it seems like a good time to take stock and restate why we do the OAI Track.
Community Engagement
The first “why” seems pretty obvious. The Specifications that fall under the OAI banner – OpenAPI, Arazzo, and Overlay – lead the API community in providing standardized, interoperable foundations for building and consuming APIs. The OAI Track gives us a forum to connect directly with the global community, strengthen collaboration across industries, and create a shared understanding of the role open standards play in shaping the API economy. It is also a space where newcomers to the community can learn, ask questions, and find ways to get involved.
Showcasing OpenAPI
The OAI Track also attracts some great speakers, with an increasing number of sessions covering the intersection between AI and OpenAPI. APIs being the bedrock of successful AI-strategies and repeatable AI outcomes, with well-described APIs being the most usable in AI applications and use cases in their current form. The narrative on OpenAPI in the AI world is still being written, with many success stories of how organizations are embracing AI in creating, consuming, and using API descriptions created in OpenAPI. The first release of Arazzo has also coincided with new protocols like Model Context Protocol, which in itself demonstrates the need for describing API-based workflows for both humans and machines, which Arazzo natively provides.
The OAI Track gives us a platform to highlight not just the specifications themselves, but the wide variety of real-world implementations, case studies, best practices, and emerging opportunities. This is a chance for practitioners to share lessons learned, for tool builders to demonstrate innovation, and for the wider community to see the tangible impact of the OAI specifications in action.
Creating a Feedback Loop
Just as important as showcasing is listening. The OAI Track creates a structured opportunity for direct feedback from the developer and practitioner communities. We learn insights on where the specifications are helping, where they could be clearer, and what gaps remain. This feedback goes to the heart of the development efforts, with specification contributors like Frank Kilcommins and Lorna Mitchell regularly leading or presenting at the OAI Track.
By turning this feedback into tangible improvements in our specifications the OAI ensures that specifications evolve in a way that reflects the needs of the people who depend on them most. Hearing from the community directly is vital to evolving the OAI Specifications in a way that meets the needs of the people who depend on it most.
What’s Next for the OAI Track
The OAI Track will continue to grow with this very successful format being taken forward into 2026. We are also holding breakfast sessions at Apidays London and Paris specifically focused on what it means to be an OAI member, and how we are changing our membership in the future.
Hope to see you at the OAI Track soon!
Contributors: Erik Wilde, Frank Kilcommins, Chris Wood.