# Kong Named a Leader for API Management in the 2026 Forrester Wave™
**Recognized as an AI governance leader as API management evolves for the AI era**
Get the report to learn why Forrester named Kong a leader in *The Forrester Wave™: API Management Software, Q3 2026*. Kong is recognized for its emphasis in AI governance, as the market shifts from managing APIs alone to governing how AI agents access models, tools, and MCP servers.
- - **Named a Leader in AI Governance:** Forrester states Kong "well suits modern cloud native use cases with an emphasis on AI governance." By securely governing AI model access through an API gateway, Kong empowers engineering teams to safely deploy AI features at scale.
- - **Most LLM Governance Policies of Any Vendor Evaluated:** The report found that Kong's gateway has more policies for LLM governance than any other vendor in this evaluation. These built-in policies provide immediate solutions for implementing token-based pricing controls, rate limiting, and secure prompt routing.
- - **A Strategy Built for the AI Control Plane:** Forrester describes Kong's vision as one built to expand API management into an AI control plane, while recognizing that this requires supporting broad protocols, event-driven architecture, gateway modernization, and alignment with executive business strategy.
Forrester's report points to a market in transition: MCP support has gone from nonexistent to a baseline buyer requirement in under two years, and token-based pricing for LLM services has made AI governance a top priority in API management purchasing decisions.
Access the full report to see Forrester's complete scoring and analysis across all evaluated vendors.
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