Microsoft named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide API Management 2026 Vendor Assessment

Azure API Management is a comprehensive, Azure-native platform designed to oversee a broad range of elements, from traditional APIs to advanced AI resources, tools, and agents.

As artificial intelligence becomes a part of everyday operations, we’re witnessing a transformation in how systems communicate. Companies now need to manage not only APIs but also the operational dynamics of AI systems throughout their organisation.

We’re excited to announce that Microsoft has been recognised as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide API Management 2026 Vendor Assessment (#US52034025, March 2026). This accolade demonstrates our commitment to helping businesses securely scale both APIs and AI, ensuring they have the necessary control, visibility, and reliability for effective operations.

Built on a Proven Foundation with AI Integration

For over ten years, Azure API Management has been a reliable control centre for API governance, security, and visibility on a global scale, catering to over 38,000 customers, nearly 3 million APIs, and handling upwards of 3 trillion API requests each month. This solid foundation is now expanding to accommodate a new breed of workloads.

As businesses integrate AI into their operations, they must navigate a complex mix of API traffic and AI-driven interactions. Each of these areas presents unique governance challenges, cost implications, and reliability expectations. The focus has shifted from merely connecting systems to effectively managing behaviours at scale. Companies must oversee how models, tools, and agents perform in a live environment while controlling costs, enforcing policies, and assuring reliability across various multi-provider AI interactions.

The AI gateway features within API Management leverage this foundation, enhancing API governance to include AI workloads. Presently, more than 2,000 enterprise clients are utilising these capabilities to operationalise AI safely.

A Unified Platform for Scaling APIs and AI

To adapt to this transition, organisations require a streamlined model—one integrated platform that offers uniformity across APIs and AI.

Azure API Management enables businesses to manage everything from traditional APIs to AI models, tools, and agents on one single Azure-native platform. With this approach, companies can accelerate their AI initiatives without sacrificing oversight, visibility, or consistency as they scale. By standardising the way systems connect and function, teams can mitigate fragmentation, simplify processes, and lay a trustworthy groundwork for innovation across the organisation.

This method is already showing global success. Heineken employs Azure API Management as the cornerstone of its worldwide API framework, enabling teams to swiftly build and scale digital experiences while upholding a consistent, centrally governed framework. In just five months, Heineken established and launched a global API system that now processes 50 million API calls each month, with a remarkable 100% uptime since its introduction, and achieved a 75% reduction in cost per API call through a standardised governance and security model at scale.

Designed Governance for Scalable AI

As the adoption of AI rises, the challenge evolves from merely creating models to ensuring they operate reliably in live environments. Organisations require a consistent mechanism to regulate how AI systems function in production settings.

Azure API Management offers that governance layer, allowing businesses to specify how AI systems interact with models, tools, and agents, while enforcing security policies, tracking usage, and maintaining oversight of costs and behaviours across different settings. This guarantees that every interaction is secure, observable, and compliant with business and regulatory requirements.

This strategy is proving to be crucial in practical applications. Banco Bradesco utilises Azure API Management to safely supervise AI services and APIs across various channels, implementing centralised governance and complete visibility. By standardising the way APIs and AI services are utilised and accessed, the bank guarantees uniform security policies, enhances monitoring across interactions, and fosters robust digital banking experiences with strong data protection.

With Microsoft Azure API Management, we securely manage AI services and APIs across all channels. It’s the backbone of our architecture scaling with demand while maintaining strict governance and data protection.

—Phelipi Dal’Olio, Bridge Manager, Banco Bradesco

Transforming AI Innovation into Tangible Business Value

With a solid governance framework, companies can shift from mere experimentation to delivering genuine business benefits through AI.

Telefónica Brasil is employing Azure OpenAI to enhance customer experiences across digital platforms, leading to improved service, faster response times, and increased personalised engagement at scale.

Simultaneously, Access Group has seamlessly integrated AI into its product range. By using Azure API Management as the base for its AI gateway, Access introduced over 50 AI-driven products within a year and expanded its user base to 2.2 million. They also attained ISO 42001 certification for responsible AI, showcasing how effective governance can spur innovation.

Air India has successfully rolled out a generative AI assistant at scale. This assistant can handle up to 40,000 customer queries daily, resolving over 13 million conversations with a 97% success rate. This expansion allows the airline to enhance customer support without increasing staffing levels, translating to significant annual savings.

Azure API Management facilitates this transition by providing a consistent method to expose, secure, and oversee the APIs that drive these AI-enhanced experiences. This helps organisations transition from isolated innovations to fully operational, enterprise-scale impacts.

Broadening the Platform for Future Innovations

As businesses begin to adopt new ways of interacting with APIs and AI systems, the platform is continuously evolving. Azure API Management is adapting to support new scenarios, including governed agent interactions, offering APIs as reusable tools for AI systems, and enabling centralised discovery and policy enforcement across environments. This ensures that organisations can embrace new features without creating fragmentation or losing control.

As companies take further steps in AI investments, the capacity to manage how systems and AI interact at scale will become a critical differentiator. API management is transitioning from merely linking systems to facilitating controlled, trustworthy interactions throughout the enterprise.

We are proud to be acknowledged as a Leader in the 2026 IDC MarketScape for Worldwide API Management Vendor Assessment, and we are dedicated to helping organisations scale APIs and AI with assurance.