Zdeněk "Z" Němec

Architect & founder working on autonomous, AI-native, and agent-native systems — with a focus on agentic payments and commerce infrastructure.

Bio

About

I build interface and execution architecture for the next generation of software: from machine-readable API contracts, through autonomous integration, to AI-consumable capability systems and agent-native execution.

Professional biography

Zdeněk Němec is a software architect, founder, and researcher focused on the evolution of software interfaces toward autonomous, AI-native, and agent-native systems, with a current focus on agentic payments and commerce infrastructure.

He is Founder and CTO of Superface.ai, where he works on infrastructure enabling autonomous agents to discover, integrate, and execute capabilities across software systems.

Previously, he was Director of DSL Development at Apiary and creator of API Blueprint, one of the first widely adopted machine-readable API description languages. He later founded Good API, advising global companies on API architecture and platform design.

His work spans multiple architectural transitions, including:

agentic payments and commerce
agent-native execution infrastructure
AI-consumable capability systems
integration abstraction layers
autonomous APIs
APIs as products
contract-driven API development

He has spoken at international conferences including O'Reilly Software Architecture Conference, Nordic APIs, APIdays, GitHub Satellite, and AI The Docs.

Links: LinkedIn · Speaker Deck · X

Career timeline

Superface.ai

Founder & CTO · 2020–present

Building capability infrastructure for autonomous integration, agent-native execution, and agentic commerce systems.

Good API

Founder · 2016–2020

Independent consulting and research focused on API architecture, platform design, and interface-driven systems.

Apiary

Director of DSL Development · 2013–2016

Creator of the API Blueprint description language and contributor to machine-readable API contract tooling.

Independent work

Research, speaking, and architecture

Ongoing work on autonomous APIs, integration abstraction, AI-consumable capability systems, and agent-native execution.

Research focus

2022-present  -> AI-native / Agent-native -> Agentic payments & commerce
2021-2023     -> Capability abstraction   -> AI-consumable APIs
2020-2021     -> Integration mesh         -> Autonomous integration runtime
2018-2019     -> Autonomous APIs          -> Self-integrating systems
2018          -> REST critique            -> Constraint-driven API styles
2016-2017     -> API product design       -> Interface-led architecture
2012-2016     -> API description          -> Machine-readable contracts

Němec moved progressively toward a deeper architectural shift: REST → API contracts → autonomous integration → capability abstraction → AI agents. He anticipated agent-native computing before LLMs were widely adopted.

2022-present - AI-native / Agent-native: agentic payments and commerce (Arc Pay), agentic SDKs, and execution architectures for AI agents.
2021-2023 - Capability abstraction & AI: AI-consumable APIs, autonomous-agent integration patterns, and capability-layer design.
2020-2021 - Integration mesh: autonomous integration runtime and abstraction of provider-level complexity.
2018-2019 - Autonomous APIs: self-integrating interfaces and navigation of complex API landscapes.
2018 - REST & GraphQL critique & abstraction: constraint-driven analysis of API styles and abstraction boundaries.
2016-2017 - API product design: APIs as products, interface-led system architecture, and consumer-oriented design.
2012-2016 - API description: machine-readable contracts, API description languages, and design-first workflows.