The question enterprise decision-makers are asking in 2026 isn’t whether they should adopt AI — that’s a given by now. It’s whether their architecture can actually sustain it at scale.
Across boardrooms and engineering teams alike, the enthusiasm for AI is undeniable. Most large enterprises (80%, according to McKinsey) are already experimenting with AI agents, copilots, and intelligent automation. But research shows only 12% feel their infrastructure is AI-ready.
In other words: enterprises have already completed the experimentation phase. They’ve demonstrated valuable use cases. The appetite to scale is real and urgent. But now that they’re ready to operationalize AI, they’re running headfirst into an integration blockade of their own making.
One of the places this gap shows up most clearly is at the API layer.
Just as APIs opened enterprises up to participate in wider ecosystems through composable building blocks, APIs are the primary interface through which intelligence reaches the business. Today, these digital assets increasingly serve not just developers and partners, but also autonomous systems and AI-driven workflows.
The fact that these shifts are now visible in API management research reflects how expectations for APIM itself are evolving. That’s why we feel the first IDC MarketScape: 2026 Worldwide API Management Vendor Assessment1 is particularly timely. I’m proud to share that Axway has been named a Leader.
IDC is a leading provider of global IT research and advice, and this IDC MarketScape evaluates vendors on their ability to support modern API programs. In their assessment, IDC analysts state:
“Organizations should also consider Axway if they are seeking to prepare their data and capabilities for AI enablement and are looking to safely expose and govern APIs from core systems so they can be consumed by LLM-based applications and agents, especially where the ability to bridge legacy integration and modern API programs is viewed as a strategic requirement.”¹
In our view, this recognition reflects the forces shaping the future of API management and integration. It is not a race to adopt the newest interface or AI model, but a commitment to building platforms that respect the complexity enterprises already live with, while giving them a controlled path forward.
Here’s how AI is raising the bar for the API management landscape – and why we believe our Amplify Platform is purpose-built to lead this shift to governance-first integration.
Market signals show integration is now the make-or-break factor
Beneath today’s AI momentum lies an uncomfortable reality: intelligence can only move as fast as the integration layer beneath it. And for many organizations, that layer is already under strain.
Nearly three-quarters of enterprises point to integration challenges as a top barrier to progress, and CIOs increasingly rank it as their number one infrastructure investment priority for the years ahead.
At the same time, AI-driven workloads are accelerating data movement at unprecedented rates. This multiplies governance, security, and operational risks that might have previously been manageable on a smaller scale.
Consider: The two biggest business risks holding back agentic AI adoption2 are unintended consequences from complex system interactions and security vulnerabilities caused by autonomous actions.
“Our research shows decision-makers are prioritizing their investments in AI and automation in 2026,” says Shari Lava, Research VP, AI and Automation at IDC. “But it’s critical to understand that those projects will not drive the business value intended without holistic and interoperable integration architecture and tools.”
AI pressure exposes a deeper issue: most enterprises don’t have a unified way to govern how data and intelligence move across their systems.
Fragmented integration stacks – often built up through years of point solutions, gateways, and regional tooling – are extending delivery timelines by months and driving up costs. As a result, we see more and more enterprises planning to consolidate integration vendors in the near term, in hopes of reducing complexity.
Forward-thinking leaders understand that the kind of visibility and control needed to feed AI’s insatiable data hunger will need to span environments, vendors, and patterns. In this context, integration becomes the control plane for how intelligence flows through the enterprise: what gets exposed, what stays protected, and what can safely scale.
Governance at scale requires a multi‑pattern approach
Axway’s vision for overseeing and controlling APIs via a common control plane across multiple environments, such as cloud, on-premises, and edge locations ensures consistent performance, security, and governance across today’s increasingly distributed systems.
Enterprise integration is increasingly a multi-pattern proposition, especially with the added complexity of AI. So, it’s only natural to extend this federated vision beyond APIs to our expertise in secure file transfer and B2B integration.
We refer to this as multi-pattern integration: the ability to support and orchestrate diverse patterns within a unified framework, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all approach to enterprise integration.
The IDC MarketScape highlights this aspect of our approach:
“The platform benefits from Axway’s long-standing experience in B2B integration, secure file transfer, and legacy connectivity, providing differentiated capabilities for organizations that need to expose and control APIs around core systems that are not cloud-native. This integration heritage supports use cases where APIs must coexist with and broker access to EDI flows, MFT-based exchanges, and monolithic applications, enabling modernization through APIs without forcing a full back-end re-platforming.”
Modern API programs suddenly need to broker far more than traditional API traffic. Agentic AI and protocols like Model Context Protocol (MCP) promise automation and intelligence, but they also introduce new risks: uncontrolled data exposure, opaque decision-making, governance gaps…
Without guardrails, AI-enabled ecosystems can quickly spiral into a new level of complexity.
That is why at Axway, we aim to deliver a unified experience across patterns – so organizations can innovate at their own pace, without ripping out their foundation, and unlock the data to power their next-generation strategies.
Enterprises need a governance-first integration platform. Amplify Fusion is built to lead it.
API-only approaches do not solve the full integration challenge enterprises face. Amplify Fusion was built to close this gap.
A key module within the Amplify solution, Fusion extends its promise of a secure foundation, transforming fragmented systems into real-time, governed data flows that power intelligent automation and frictionless orchestration.
To be clear, all this AI talk doesn’t mean that APIs are becoming less important, but that we need to adjust and optimize our API landscape to provide the required experience for agentic consumption, in addition to the capabilities it provides for its traditional consumers.
APIs remain the foundation of digital business, and in 2026, our customers will see continued innovation across Amplify API Management and our API marketplace solution, Amplify Engage, as APIs become the primary interface not just for developers and partners, but for AI-driven agents as well.
Looking ahead, our focus expands naturally from managing APIs in isolation to governing how intelligence flows through them – securely, responsibly, and at scale. Or, as Axway CEO Roland Royer puts it:
“Axway’s deep expertise in security, integration, and federated governance positions Axway as a trusted enabler for enterprises seeking to secure and govern data exchange in this new era of AI.”
Read the IDC MarketScape Axway excerpt
1 IDC MarketScape: Worldwide API Management 2026 Vendor Assessment (#US52034025), March 2026.
2 IDC, Future Enterprise Resiliency & Spending Survey, Wave 11, December 2024