Kong believes that having ranked at the far right in terms of 'Vision Integrity' for three consecutive years reflects the company's evolution in its ability to connect from API to AI.
San Francisco, September 30th / PRNewswire / —— Kong Inc. Today, the company announced that it has been rated as a leader in the 2026 API Management Magic Quadrant™ by __BJWKEEP_00003® for the seventh consecutive year. This assessment is based on an analysis of the company's overall “Vision Integrity” ( Completeness of Vision ) and “Execution Capability” ( Ability to Execute ). Kong ranks at the far right in terms of “Vision Integrity,” a recognition that the company has maintained for three consecutive years.
Kong believes that this year's position in the Magic Quadrant reflects the AI connectivity vision proposed by the company a year ago, as well as broader transformations occurring within the industry: AI tokens are becoming an increasingly important part of corporate API traffic at a faster rate than companies are applying the same governance mechanisms to API. Kong Internal data shows that the traffic from corporate AI accounts has increased sevenfold over the past nine months, accounting for Kong of the platform's total traffic. Moreover, among organizations that use AI through this platform, less than 1% have any form of exclusive governance controls in place.
"We are proud to have been recognized by Gartner as a leader in the API management field for the seventh consecutive year. We believe that this recognition reflects, first and foremost, the trust our customers place in us, and secondly, it reflects the evolution of API management: as enterprises begin to utilize AI in real-world scenarios on our connectivity layer, the platform has started to manage proxies, MCP, models, and API all within a unified control plane, something that has never been achieved before. API management has become the foundational platform engineering for modern applications because it meets these governance needs; today, these needs have also extended to proxy workloads. To enable even the most demanding organizations to achieve reliable connectivity, it is essential to have comprehensive security, compliance, cost management, resilience, and observability across any cloud and any model. This is the capability of our secure transmission of AI," stated Kong Inc, CEO and co-founder of Augusto Marietti.
Kong continues to expand its platform to meet the emerging new needs in the fields of API and AI, including the recently launched Kong AI Gateway 2.0. This version introduces new capabilities such as supported governance proxies and MCP tool access, AI cost management, broader support for models and providers, identity-aware AI policies, and AI service authentication. This release also expands Kong's ability to help enterprises securely connect to, govern, and manage AI traffic in production environments, while giving enterprises greater control over security, cost, and operational requirements.
For more information, please visit the Kong blog.
Gartner Disclaimer
Gartner, "The Magic Quadrant of API Management", Shameen Pillai, Nicholas Carter, and John Santoro, September 28, 2026. Gartner, "The Key Competencies of API Management", Shameen Pillai, Nicholas Carter, and John Santoro, September 28, 2026.
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Regarding Kong Inc.
Kong Inc. Claiming to be a AI connectivity company, they are building the connectivity layer for AI. Kong is trusted by Fortune 500 companies and AI native startups. Their unified API and AI platforms enable organizations to securely manage, accelerate, govern, and realize intelligent monetization of API and AI traffic on any model and in any cloud. For more information, please visit www.konghq.com.
