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Three shifts are defining the next phase of NaaS: AI is redefining infrastructure requirements, NaaS is becoming the execution model for automated network service supply chains, and AI-ready infrastructure is emerging as a new competitive battleground.
I recently joined leading industry analysts from 14 firms in judging Mplify’s 2026 NaaS Excellence Awards (see finalists). The submissions provided a timely cross-section of the market and reinforced these shifts, with evidence of deeper lifecycle automation, growing multi-provider coordination, and the convergence of AI for NaaS with NaaS for AI.
1. AI is redefining infrastructure requirements
AI workloads are becoming more distributed, dynamic, latency-sensitive, and autonomous.
Beyond high-capacity connectivity, AI-readiness depends on the ability to connect and coordinate distributed compute with the performance, security, sovereignty, programmability, and assurance required for AI factories, GPU clusters, and distributed inference.
2. NaaS is becoming the execution model for automated network service supply chains
In a Market Brief last fall, I introduced the concept of NaaS as the automated network supply chain for agentic AI. The premise was straightforward: AI systems operating across distributed environments require more than programmable connectivity. They need infrastructure that can be discovered, composed, activated, managed, and assured across providers.
Modern NaaS provides that foundation by combining on-demand connectivity, application assurance, cybersecurity, and multi-cloud networking within a standards-based automated ecosystem. The critical shift is from automating individual networks to lifecycle automation across providers. Serviceability, quoting, ordering, provisioning, assurance, and other functions need to work consistently across organizational boundaries.
That requires alignment between buyers and sellers around standardized LSO APIs, payloads, and processes. Standards-based lifecycle automation using LSO APIs has been in production for several years and continues to expand. What is changing is the breadth of automation across partners and services, including Carrier Ethernet, DIA, and emerging payloads, along with automated last-mile sourcing, multi-provider interconnection, broader lifecycle automation and coordination, and growing AI-enablement through MCP and agent-driven interaction.
3. AI-ready infrastructure is becoming a new competitive battleground
Network footprint, infrastructure ownership, and portfolio breadth still matter. But AI-ready services often span connectivity, data centers, distributed compute, cloud and edge resources, security, application assurance, and specialized technologies across multiple partners.
Advantage depends increasingly on what an organization can access, combine, automate, secure, assure, and deliver across an ecosystem, not simply what it owns.
The awards submissions reinforce this shift. Leading providers are emphasizing cloud on-ramps, carrier and data center partnerships, API integrations, interconnection ecosystems, and the ability to deliver a consistent experience across them.
They also show AI for NaaS and NaaS for AI converging: AI is helping monitor, optimize, troubleshoot, and automate networks, while AI workloads depend on programmable infrastructure. Early use of AI agents and MCP around serviceability, design, quoting, ordering, and operations points toward greater autonomy.
As autonomy grows, standards, interoperability, governance, security, and trust become more important.
These shifts are shaping Mplify’s current research agenda. Two forthcoming reports — Scaling NaaS Automated Network Service Supply Chains: LSO API Adoption, Payloads and Processes, and Buyer–Seller Alignment and NaaS for AI: Defining AI-Ready Infrastructure — will examine implementation depth for inter-provider automation and the infrastructure capabilities required to support AI. Mplify’s Agentic LSO and NaaS Federation initiatives are advancing this model further, with a focus on AI-enabled interaction with standardized lifecycle functions and trusted coordination across multi-provider ecosystems.
A 2026 industry survey is now underway to gather provider input on ecosystem participation, automation depth, barriers to scaling, and AI-enabled orchestration. If your organization would like to participate in the survey or discuss sponsorship of either report, please reach out to me.
The direction is clear: NaaS is moving from on-demand connectivity toward coordinated execution across an automated ecosystem, and the next phase of competition will be defined by who can coordinate and scale capabilities most effectively across it.
Learn More
- View the complete list of 2026 NaaS Excellence Awards finalists
- Download the Mplify Market Brief: NaaS: The Automated Network Supply Chain for Agentic AI.
- Learn more about Mplify’s vision for NaaS.
- Read the Mplify NaaS Industry Blueprint.
- Join industry leaders at the Mplify Member Summit – Americas in Boston, 22–24 September, to advance NaaS for the Agentic AI era and celebrate the 2026 NaaS Excellence Awards winners.
