APIs always move quickly. API design trends can be virtually unrecognizable from year to year, even when responding to ongoing issues facing the API industry. Even by tech standards, API trends are evolving at a particularly frenetic pace, as the digital landscape pivots at lightning speed while adapting to revolutionary new technologies.

To get a sense of how the API industry is evolving, we asked numerous thought leaders working in the API space for their thoughts on current API trends. Our respondents did not disappoint, sharing a range of thoughtful and compelling insights about what’s shaping the industry. Unsurprisingly, AI was the most common answer. While it’s no shock that AI is driving many of the API design trends in 2025, the particular ways it’s reshaping the API industry are especially fascinating.

Without further ado, here are some of the API trends of 2025 having the largest impact on the industry.

AI Is Reshaping the API Industry

AI is reshaping the API industry in every conceivable way. It’s changing how APIs are created, how they’re defined and described, and even their reason for existing in the first place. As Marco Palladino, CTO and Co-Founder of Kong, notes, “The bottom line is that there is no AI without APIs. And as developers look to leverage AI and LLMs for future innovation, the more APIs there will be to manage.” Kong’s 2024 API Impact Report found the value of APIs to enable AI is expected to grow 170% by 2030.

David Mooter, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, believes the onset of agentic AI will make APIs even more essential. “ChatGPT and image generation just spit out data. The next step is AI executing tasks.” He foresees a future in which consumer AI agents act as digital doubles, helping automate complex tasks like flight and hotel booking and beyond. In this highly connected era, “not having an API for your product will be like not having a mobile app or website,” he says.

The proliferation of AI will also make API governance and transparency more necessary, as noted by Eyal Solomon, CEO and Co-Founder of Lunar.dev. In short, experimentation and development around AI agents is a game-changer in 2025, much like the rapid adoption of LLMs in 2023-2024. “These agents heavily depend on API usage through the tools they leverage and function calling to perform their tasks, creating new challenges around governance, visibility, and control of API interactions.”

AI is also accelerating the API ecosystem in every way. Apollo GraphQL‘s Subrata Chakrabarti predicts that not only will APIs need to be rapidly prototyped and deployed—but they’ll also need to be secure. “As AI applications proliferate, organizations will demand APIs that not only handle the chaos of rapid prototyping but also balance speed with robust security and cost efficiency in production environments. Granular access controls, real-time performance monitoring, and optimized compute environments will become non-negotiable for businesses navigating this new era.”

The rise of AI is also making APIs more machine-readable than ever. Terrence Bennett, CEO of DreamFactory Software, observes that “schema-based API generation leverages underlying database or application schemas to create a structured interface, essentially providing large language models (LLMs) with a clear blueprint of the data (tables, fields, and relationships) they can query and reason about.”

Bennett notes how APIs based on formal schemas like OpenAPI or GraphQL can serve as an invaluable bridge between structured and unstructured data. “Because the generated APIs come with formal specifications (e.g., OpenAPI or GraphQL schemas), an LLM can ingest this structured context and use it to form valid queries and parse results, effectively bridging the gap between the model’s unstructured language understanding and enterprise structured data.”

The relationship between AI and APIs is entering uncharted territory, reshaping how systems interact. “AI will increasingly guide developers in crafting and consuming APIs, introducing new patterns and unpredictable usage scenarios,” says Apollo GraphQL’s Rob Brazier. “This shift will demand advanced observability tools to monitor and adapt to evolving behaviors, ensuring systems remain secure and efficient.”

API Generation

The acceleration of the API industry requires the ability to build and deploy APIs faster than ever before. They also need to be dependable and secure. This need for robust, secure APIs at scale is creating demand for automated API generation based on established criteria.

DreamFactory’s Bennett highlights the value of generating APIs directly from schemas and data sources. “By automatically producing APIs from existing data sources, organizations can unify access to siloed, proprietary, and on-premises data stores, instantly exposing previously isolated information through standard web service endpoints.”

API as a Product

Vedran Cindrić of Treblle says the rise of platform teams and the need to diversify income streams are increasing the need for APIs as standalone products.

This trend brings many changes to the API industry. While APIs are increasingly essential for business, C-suite executives still don’t fully grasp their strategic importance. As Forrester’s David Mooter observes: “Buyers still struggle with API governance and federated delivery. Although business-led API strategies are more common than ever before, I still see many IT organizations struggling to get their business leaders to understand why APIs should be part of business strategy.”

Mooter believes market pressures will ultimately settle the issue. This trend presents an opportunity for both business owners and API developers. Developers need to explain the business value of their API products as part of their onboarding materials. Meanwhile, business owners need to stay informed about industry best practices — or risk falling behind.

The Need for API Governance

The need for APIs to be both dependable and secure is increasing the need for strong API governance — a framework and set of practices to ensure an API is complete, compliant, and consumable. Discoverability, lifecycle management, documentation, and reusability are all key components of modern API governance.

Lunar.dev’s Eyal Solomon emphasizes how the rise of AI is heightening these demands: “The rise of agentic workflows and AI-driven decision-making will further accelerate the need for robust API governance, visibility, and control frameworks to manage the surge in API traffic and ensure reliability, security, and cost efficiency. This dynamic will drive innovation in API infrastructure and consumption management.”

Mooter also advises that more teams working with APIs must think like product managers. To that end, he recommends implementing automated governance tooling across multiple gateway products — even for internal APIs.

Solomon suggests that new tools like reverse API gateways can further support scalable, observable, and secure APIs. This reflects an increased focus on API consumers, which Solomon sees as an important upcoming trend. Treblle’s Vedran Cindrić similarly recommends tools that integrate observability, security, and governance.

API Security Is Even More Important

“The more sophisticated technologies — like AI — get, the more sophisticated attackers get,” notes Kong’s Marco Palladino. He cites an alarming statistic that over 55% of organizations experienced some form of API-related security event in 2024, with 20% reporting over $500,000 in damages. While AI makes creating and deploying APIs easier than ever, it also empowers more sophisticated attackers.

Furthermore, Kong also found that 25% of organizations have already encountered AI-enhanced security threats related to APIs or LLMs, and 75% noted a serious concern for AI-enhanced attacks in the future. “API security has always been challenging, but recent advancements have made security even more complex,” adds Palladino. To combat this surge in incidents, he advises security teams to maintain full visibility of all API endpoints and to use a centralized platform for API management.

API Sprawl

Kin Lane of API Evangelist has long warned about the dangers of API sprawl. His concerns echo our own analysis of Treblle’s Anatomy of an API Report, which found that the average number of API endpoints nearly doubled in only a year. Proper governance, documentation, and API registration can all help mitigate the effects of API sprawl.

Open Banking

Open Banking is increasingly coming into its own. Eyal Sivan, General Manager at Ozone API North America and Founder of the Mr. Open Banking podcast, notes that Open Banking is gaining traction in the United States. “This decision effectively removes a significant source of uncertainty, providing much-needed clarity for stakeholders across the financial ecosystem. With this endorsement, data providers—such as banks, fintech companies, and other financial institutions—can now move forward with greater confidence in developing and implementing their data-sharing APIs. By aligning their efforts based on the FDX API standard, they can ensure compliance with regulatory expectations under Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act, while fostering more secure, efficient, and consumer-centric data-sharing practices.”

Final Thoughts on API Trends of 2025

APIs were already becoming more popular and widely used before AI came onto the scene. While keeping up with API trends and best practices has always been important, the rise of AI makes this even more vital. Proper governance is a must if you’re using APIs in any regard. APIs must also be well described so LLMs can understand and consume them automatically.

With API usage set to grow even more, developers must improve how they explain their products to investors and end users alike. This means communicating potential business cases and how to use your API effectively. One thing is sure — no one knows exactly what the future of AI will bring, but it will absolutely require APIs. Make sure you’re ready.