REST In Peace: Why LLMs Can't CRUD

The emergence of LLM-powered agents represents a fundamental shift in how software systems interact. Traditional REST APIs, designed for human-driven applications, create friction when AI agents attempt to orchestrate complex workflows across traditional downstream system. This sesssion explores the architectural evolution from resource-based to intent-based APIs, examining why current API paradigms fail at agent orchestration and what we must build instead. We’ll dive deep into the technical challenges LLMs face when navigating CRUD operations, the cognitive overhead of translating high-level intent into dozens of low-level API calls, and the brittleness introduced by rigid resource schemas. You’ll learn how intent-based APIs abstract away implementation details, enabling agents to express goals rather than methods. Discover how MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers can host these next-gen APIs, creating standardized agent-to-system and agent-to-agent interfaces.