API Report 2025 Edition
Anatomy
of an API
Based on data from:
To bring you the answers to these Key Industry Questions:
Key Findings
Global API latency dropped by 53% year-over-year.
The average load time fell from 695ms to 322ms as optimization became the primary engineering KPI. This shift is driven by AI agents, where high latency causes timeouts and operational failures rather than just poor UX.
Nearly half of all API traffic is completely anonymous.
Despite Zero Trust initiatives, 47% of APIs still process requests without any authentication, and 42% of traffic remains unencrypted HTTP. Basic security hygiene is lagging significantly behind raw performance gains.
Write-heavy operations are displacing read-only traffic.
POST requests surged by 80% this year, shifting the landscape from data retrieval to transactional workflows. APIs are now primarily engineered for "doing" work, processing transactions and triggering AI, rather than just "reading" data.
Microservices are consolidating into massive "Mega-APIs."
The share of APIs with over 100 endpoints jumped from 4% to 38%. To support complex AI contexts (MCP) and reduce network chatter, teams are moving away from single-purpose microservices toward larger, consolidated platforms.
API sprawl is finally shrinking as governance tightens.
The percentage of "Zombie" endpoints dropped from 36% to 17%. Driven by regulatory pressure and cost controls, organizations are actively deprecating legacy infrastructure rather than letting it accumulate as technical debt.
This report is ideal for:
CTOs & Digital Leaders– who need to transition APIs from backend plumbing to strategic business assets.