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The State of API Integration 2026

You inherit an integration. The API key belongs to a colleague who left. The docs describe a version that shipped two years ago. You learn which fields are actually required by watching things break.

Every benchmark in this space surveys API providers about their own portals. Nobody has asked the people on the receiving end, the developers about what their challenges are.

That's the gap this survey exists to close.

Everyone who answers is credited in the report when it publishes — not as a data point, but by name, alongside the other engineers who put this on the record.

10 questions, ~ 4 minutes.

Section 1 (Finding the API)

Before you can call one, you have to find out it exists. That's harder than it should be.

Q1. How do you find out an API that probably already exists somewhere in your company?

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Q2. Now you need to know how the API works. Where does its documentation actually live?

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Section 2 (Getting API access)

You've found it. How long until you've made one call that works?

Q3. How do you get credentials for the API before the first call?

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Q4. Before your API calls reach production, what can you test against?

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Section 3 (Living with the API)

It shipped. You own it now. These are the questions that matter at 2am.

Q5. Do you use multiple API gateways?

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B

Q6. Which gateways do you use?

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Q7. An API you call is slow and you don't know whose fault it is. What errors and latency data can you actually see?

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Q8. When a partner ships a breaking change, how do you find out?

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Section 4 (The next API integration)

Two questions left: how the next one gets built, and who else is asking to call your APIs.

Q9. A new external API integration lands on your team tomorrow. Is there a standard way to build it?

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Q10. If you wanted an AI agent to call your company's APIs today, how would it get access?

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How should we credit you?

Q1. What's your role?

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Q2. How large is your API integration team?

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Q3. How large is your organization?

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Q4. What industry is your company in?

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Q5. Contact Information