I sat down with Sinan Eren, co-founder and CEO of Opnova. Opnova is building AI-powered automation for enterprises—specifically targeting companies that rely on legacy systems and lack modern APIs.

We talked about how automation can thrive even in systems that don't have APIs and discussed the challenges and opportunities of automating workflows in regulated, legacy environments. We explored how modern tools like RPA, LLMs, and new standards like MCP are changing the game.

From the rise of browser-based automation to the long-term vision of API-first ecosystems, we touched on the transitional tech that was bridging the gaps of today—and what the future might look like when APIs are truly everywhere.

Show Notes
[00:00:00] Introduction
- Overview of discussion topics: automation in legacy systems, RPA, LLMs, MCP, and the evolution toward API-first ecosystems.

[00:00:42] What Opnova Is Solving
- Sinan’s background in cybersecurity and founding Opnova.
- Automating rework: repetitive, manual tasks in regulated industries like healthcare and finance.

[00:02:00] Bridging the API Gap
- Most enterprise systems lack modern APIs.
- How Opnova helps these companies automate despite missing APIs.
- The challenges of working beyond the Silicon Valley tech bubble.

[00:03:00] Leveraging RPA and LLMs for Automation
- How Opnova uses robotic process automation and large language models.
- Modeling user behavior to automate UI actions via screenshots and intent recognition.

[00:04:58] Standards Like MCP and Tool Calling
- MCP (Model Context Protocol) and its potential to become a new standard.
- Bridging the gap for underserved industries lacking API exposure.
- Sinan’s take on early adoption and long-tail enterprise needs.

[00:06:00] APIs as a Deal-Maker
- APIs enabling last-minute customer wins in previous startups.
- Command-line over UI: why customers sometimes prefer APIs to interfaces.
- Rapid feature delivery via API access.

[00:07:54] The API Tax Debate
- Comparing API access to the “SSO tax” of the past.
- Concerns about hiding APIs behind enterprise pricing tiers.
- Why APIs should be a baseline offering.

[00:09:00] APIs as the New Sitemaps
- API discoverability as a critical factor in tool ecosystems.
- Drawing parallels between SEO-era sitemaps and today’s OpenAPI specs.
- The risk of exclusion from LLM-powered interfaces.

[00:11:58] Browser Automation as a Transitional Layer
- Why browser-based agents are a temporary solution.
- The long-term goal: native APIs everywhere.
- Transitional tooling as a necessary bridge.

[00:13:58] Tool Discovery and Registries
- The need for robust API registries to support tool discovery.
- From proof-of-concept to production: bridging the enterprise automation gap.
- The challenge of finding the right tools at the right time.

[00:15:28] Closing Thoughts and Opnova's Vision
- Browser orchestration vs. API-driven workflows.
- Why APIs are the true endgame.

More Quotes From The Discussion
The API Tax Revolution
"We have this curse in our space, it's changing now—it's called SSO tax, single sign-on tax. Why? You will have like the cheap tier, free tier, and then you'll have the enterprise tier, if you want single sign-on, if you want to tie your Okta, your EntraID into the SaaS, right? You need to buy the enterprise tier so that you can have the benefit of SSO. But I'm noticing APIs are now put in place of SSO. So SSO tax—now I worry that it's becoming API tax."

APIs as the New Sitemaps for the Agentic Era
"I feel like not having API actually is similar now. It's going to exclude you from a rapidly emerging ecosystem of tools and tool use where the discovery problem is now distributed. And so, like, what sitemaps did for websites was it said, 'Hey, I'm a website. I'm going to broadcast. I do this thing.' And then therefore any scraper ecosystem could pick it up. I think the same thing's happening with APIs."

Browser Automation: The Necessary Bridge to an API-First Future
"All this browser use models, right? Like computer use, browser use models. They are an intermediary kind of a solution, a transitional solution, right? Because we're waiting for the APIs to be exposed. So nobody really genuinely loves the idea of an agent orchestrating a Chrome browser. Really, it's just a temporary point in time that we have to do it because like you said, like, sitemaps had to be invented for better SEO."

Referenced

• Anthropic MCP (https://www.anthropic.com/news/model-context-protocol)
• OpNova.ai (https://opnova.ai/)
• Okta (https://www.okta.com/)

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