When we started our Network API research programme earlier this year, we expected a report. What we got was an ecosystem.
When we looked at this market in 2025 for the State of CPaaS, we found plenty of forecasts and very little published evidence of actual performance. So in 2026 we went deeper. Eighty executive interviews later — across operators, engagement platforms, aggregators, identity specialists, hyperscalers, standards bodies, enterprise buyers, regulators and analysts — we can say this plainly: the network API market is bigger, more complicated, and more interesting than the industry’s own conversation about it suggests. Eleven distinct stakeholder groups, each with its own vocabulary, its own incentives, and its own version of what “success” means. Half the confusion in this market isn’t technical. It’s translation.
Members got a first preview of the findings in June — the Q2 deliverable, shared inside the alliance. And it was that preview that convinced us to double down rather than wrap up. Every conversation was teaching us something the previous fifty hadn’t, and doing justice to roughly fifty case studies matters more than hitting an arbitrary date. We could have shipped a surface-level report in May. We’d rather be late and right than punctual and shallow.
What the evidence actually says
Here’s the headline we can share now: mobile network APIs work. The evidence that they produce real benefits for customers is strong and consistent. Where they work best is telling — providers who embed network APIs into an existing route to market, as an added layer on a product their customers already buy, are getting traction today. That pattern says a lot about how this market will actually grow, and it looks very different from how most of the industry is going to market.
Turning capability into revenue is a more mixed picture. Some players are making genuine strides — though generally communicating less about it than they might — while others are further behind than the headlines suggest. Unpicking why is exactly what this research is for.
One thing you won’t find in our output: another forecast promising a $30 billion, $50 billion, or $600 billion market. The industry has enough of those. What it doesn’t have is an evidence-based view of what actually needs to happen, by whom, for any of those numbers to become real. That’s the gap we’re filling.
From a report to a toolkit
CPaaSAA exists to accelerate innovation in this space, not just to report on it. So what started as a research report is turning into an actionable set of components:
- A public report, landing in August — the market benefits analysis: what’s working, where, and why. A real report, printed and bound, with evidence behind every claim. We’ll give the first public preview at BATIC in Bali at the end of August.
- Member-only depth — the frameworks, the issues analysis, the material for people with real decisions to make.
- A maturity scan, in development — because the most consistent thing we heard across eighty interviews is that everyone wants to know where they actually stand and what to do next. A structured way for operators, aggregators, and solution partners to assess their readiness and act on it. Members get first access as it develops.
- Ecosystem definitions and a shared taxonomy — picked up by the Telco API Working Group, so that eleven stakeholder groups can finally argue about the same things using the same words.
- Alignment with the GSMA — because this only works if the industry’s institutions and its innovators pull in the same direction.
This is the number one question we get from operators and aggregators — not “how big is the market?” but “what do we need to do, and how do we tap in?” It’s why, alongside the research itself, we run dedicated strategy sessions with our Accelerate and Grow members — five already this year, some full-day workshops, some sharp one-hour working discussions. That’s what member value looks like: not a chart to put in a board deck, but a working answer to the question the board is actually asking.
This network API work is one of three research strands running into CASA26, alongside the State of the Intelligent Engagement Market — where we’re building and testing scenarios for how AI changes competitive advantage across the industry — and the next edition of our AI Voice research, examining how enterprise and telco-centric voice models compete, complement, or converge. One evidence base, three fronts.
September in Amsterdam: where the scenarios get tested
At CASA26 (21–23 September), the findings get debated live — and the discussion is framed the way the research is. Not APIs for APIs’ sake, not AI for AI’s sake: outcomes and use cases. Where does this stuff actually get used? When does it add value? And crucially — which issues does the industry need to solve collectively, and where does each player simply need to execute faster on their own competitive edge? That line between collaboration and competition runs through everything in this market, and CASA26 is built to walk it honestly.
We’re also proud to co-host the inaugural GSMA European Open Gateway Market Champions’ Workshop on Wednesday 23 September — the first time this gathering takes place, and it happens in Amsterdam. GSMA speakers will bring real deployment stories, including from aviation — use cases, not slideware. All in all, we expect around forty operators in the city that week, focused on innovation around the trust layer. For anyone building in this space, there are few better rooms to be in this year.
CASA26 is members-and-sponsors-only. Members attend free. If you’re not yet a member, this is the moment to look at membership — or at the sponsorship options, because the audience gathering in Amsterdam is exactly the one this ecosystem’s builders want to reach.
No more yearly reports
One more realisation from this work: an annual report cadence makes no sense for a market moving this fast. Network APIs and AI Voice are both changing quarter by quarter, so our research is becoming a continuous activity — continuous input from the ecosystem, continuous analysis, regular outputs. There will still be reports you can read, print, hand out, and sponsor. But the real product is what sits behind them: the accumulated, qualitative, actionable knowledge from all these interviews and cases — something each player in this ecosystem can use to see where they stand, what their next steps are, and how to turn network APIs into a business.
This research is built with the industry, not just about it. If you want to influence it rather than receive it, there are three ways in: request a research interview, join a working group, or come and challenge the findings at CASA26.
That’s the job. See you in August — and in Amsterdam.