Application Programming Interfaces, or APIs, have always been a staple in the regulatory toolbox, but I am really impressed with API regulation in the last 18 months, spearheaded by the real-time regulation brigade (RRB). The RRB is an inter-agency group, that doesn't just establish how the government puts APIs to work in regulating all industries, but rather than operating in years, or quarters, it produces real-time, ongoing information on how industries and companies are working (or not).
I'm in charge of business pattern identification and replication, which means I identify the bar for what a common business looks like, when it comes to API consumption. You see, companies learned early on in the API regulatory years, who the regulators were, and who weren't, allowing them to tweak the algorthms to give different results depending on who is consuming via the APIs.
Our group's mission is to help our regulators act just as any regular customer would, consumign data, content, and other resources via banking, stock, and insurance APIs, allowing regulators to hide among the thousands of other regular customers. In 2026, we have be able to operate like we are a real business, with a real website, physical address, to be able to pass the inspection of the average regulated company. Otherwise our footprint looks like any other bot, or regulator, allowing companies to serve us tailored response, and sidestep our regulatory power.
15% of all companies who operate in any regulated industry are actually a business that is tailored, and operated as part of RRB operations. We regularly shutdown, and sell our companies to each other, making it look like they are real, even when they go away. We are always finding new, leading edge business footprints, requiring us to start approximately 300 new business in any given week, across a couple hundred industries.
While APIs radically changed how we regulate in 2018, in the last five years, regulation has become more of a cat and mouse game of API driven patterns. We can tell when a company identifies one of our shell companies, and begins changing their tune--the signals change. I see all of this as a game, where the RRB has to stay in tune with the latest patterns, and construct companies that put out just the right signals, in just the right way, so that regulated companies think we are their friend, ally, and potentially even a partner when we can.
The always shifting landscape of regulation in the modern age is what keeps my team engaged. Other groups enjoy the stability that regulation brings to industry, but our group thrives on the volatility and constant change introduced by having to stay three steps of ahead of the most savviest platforms in the new global API economy.
