Long before AI becomes good enough to take over today’s developer jobs, it is going to unleash an explosion of programming, opening up the unprofitable low end. The transformational use case for AI development will be letting non-developers use APIs. For SaaS companies, expect to see AI tools become your most common 3rd party integrator. Not the highest volume and certainly not the best integrator, but when it comes to customer enablement, nothing else will be able to compete.
If you’re a SaaS, your customers are going to demand BYO-AI support!
Major Implications for SaaS Companies
According to best practices, every SaaS company has been API First for a decade now. That means that the APIs and UIs are separate. Everything the UI does is through the API and in theory a customer could write their own UI. SaaS with white labeling and reseller revenue streams may even have bespoke UIs.
In the real world however, public facing APIs are rarely complete. Tech debt, security, business models, and other concerns result in some features not being accessible through the API.
What’s a SaaS to do?
Anything not available through the API is not available to customer’s AI developers. Building AI features into the UI offers a partial solution with three large drawbacks:
- The implementation is limited to how the SaaS’s product designers think about using the service, not how customers want to use the service.
- The SaaS has to pay for the AI access instead of the customer.
- The AI is locked in the UI and can’t interact with the rest of the customer’s workflow.
The first point is the most important – any SaaS that sets up internal AIs will always be playing catchup with the ideas of their customers and competitors.
Alternatively, being truly, completely, API First frees a SaaS to celebrate customer creativity. AI development and crazy implementations can become community building activities. Watching what customers build is free market research about what features the UI is missing. Build those features for the less savvy customers.
First, Go API First
The first step for every SaaS is to get every feature fully into the API. Make everything available to your customer’s AI of choice.
Embrace BYO-AI and let your customer’s visions soar!