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Kong extends reach and scope of AI Gateway to improve governance. TL;DR - Key Takeaways - Kong introduced Volcano, a platform for building and deploying AI agents, alongside an updated AI Gateway with expanded governance and cost-control capabilities. - Kong AI Gateway 2.2 adds declarative deployment of MCP servers and support for Microsoft Foundry, Amazon SageMaker, Kimi and Jev. - Future Kong Konnect updates are expected to add an AI registry and catalog, context mesh, token vault, AI observability and spending-tracking tools. Kong Inc. this week added a platform for building artificial intelligence (AI) agents while at the same time updating its AI gateway to provide organizations with the governance capabilities needed to minimize costs. Announced at the company's API + AI Summit, Kong also revealed that future updates to the Kong Konnect application connectivity platform will add support for an AI registry and catalog, a context mesh for discovering backend services, AI observability capabilities, a token vault, tools for tracking AI spending and a Webhook Engine to drive event-based applications. The Volcano platform for building AI agents is designed to be used either standalone or in conjunction with the AI gateway provided by Kong to access a built-in content delivery network (CDN) and authentication services. The overall goal is to provide builders of AI agents with access to a gateway through which it becomes simpler to provide an AI agent with access to any number of backend services, says Kong CTO Marco Palladino. Builders of AI agents, for example, can now provision PostgreSQL databases in seconds, with built-in backups and vector support for AI workloads, including branches. "Building and deploying AI agents today is fragmented," says Palladino. "We're making it as easy as possible." With the release of version 2.2 of the Kong AI Gateway, Kong, in addition to embedding cost-control capabilities, also now makes it possible to declaratively deploy Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers. Kong also is adding support for the Microsoft Foundry and Amazon SageMaker platforms along with Kimi and Jev AI models. It's not clear at what rate organizations are deploying AI gateways, but they provide a layer of abstraction through which organizations can give AI agents access to backend services in a way that can be centrally governed and managed. There is already no shortage of AI gateways. The challenge now becomes determining which AI gateway provides the most governance capabilities for accessing headless backend services that AI agents are dynamically invoking in ways that are difficult to predict. Unfortunately, in many organizations the proverbial AI agent horse is already before the cart. Deployment of both sanctioned and unsanctioned AI agents is well ahead of most organizations' ability to effectively govern what will soon become thousands of AI agents strewn across the enterprise. As such, the need to deploy some type of AI gateway through which security and compliance policies can be enforced is becoming more pressing with each passing day. Regardless of how governance of AI agents is achieved and maintained, the probability that there will be multiple security and compliance incidents involving AI agents is high. As such, IT teams need to rapidly deploy some type of gateway to first minimize the number of those incidents while simultaneously putting in place the processes needed to respond to incidents involving AI agents. The fundamental challenge, of course, is that AI agents operate at machine speed, which means the potential blast radius of an incident is going to increase exponentially with each passing second.

Kong announces winners of the 2026 Partner Awards. Sep 30, 2026, 17:00 ET Kong Partner Awards honors the partners leading the charge for customers building AI in production SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - Kong Inc., the AI Connectivity Company, announced the winners of its 2026 Partner Awards, awarded during Kong's API + AI Summit in Los Angeles. The awards recognize the partners across Kong's global ecosystem who are turning API and AI connectivity into real customer outcomes. "The AI race is on, and our partners are playing a critical role in helping customers move from experimentation to production," said Ken Kim, SVP of Business Development at Kong. "They're helping enterprises navigate an increasingly complex technology landscape. This year's winners demonstrate what's possible when we combine Kong's technology with the expertise, reach, and innovation of our partner ecosystem. We're proud of what we've accomplished together thus far and even more excited to build upon this success!" This year's honorees were recognized for achievements spanning joint customer wins, geographic impact, AI-focused pipeline and pursuits, solution innovation and integration, and investment in Kong. The 2026 Partner Award recipients include: * Partner of the Year: AWS is delivering exceptional business impact by combining the power, scale, and global reach of AWS with Kong Konnect and Kong AI Gateway. Together, we're helping customers of all types and industry segments around the world compete in the AI era, moving at unprecedented speed without sacrificing the control, security, or flexibility required to operate at enterprise scale. * Solution Partner of the Year, Americas: AHEAD is helping customers turn AI ambition into action through security solutions designed to help enterprises deploy AI safely and at scale. A strong co-selling motion with Kong has translated that expertise into meaningful pipeline and customer wins across the Americas. * Solution Partner of the Year, EMEA: ApiShare has distinguished itself as a trusted advisor for API and AI connectivity, combining deep governance expertise with Kong's platform. This year, the partnership generated new opportunities across EMEA that are translating directly into new logos and expansion. By bringing governance into AI strategy early, APIShare and Kong are creating a unified foundation spanning APIs, AI, agents, and emerging technologies. * Solution Partner of the Year, APJ: International Integrated Systems, Inc. (IISI) empowers organizations to modernize legacy API architecture as a launchpad for enterprise AI initiatives, steering customers from legacy API management toward AI-ready gateway and governance solutions. Combining deep technical proficiency with robust joint co-selling efforts alongside Kong, IISI emerged as the top regional driver of new customer logos this year. This collaboration delivered significant adoption across Taiwan's premier BFSI institutions, securing major wins. * Emerging Market Partner of the Year: Perceptiva is our Emerging Market Partner of the Year, recognizing their presence across Latin America this year. The team has engaged on deals across the region and across industry verticals, taking on important sales functions that help bring Kong solutions into new markets - not just opening doors, but seeing the business through. This consistent, cross-market presence is what earned them this recognition and paves the way for how Kong serves a region we see as critical to our future. * Tech Partner of the Year: Noma Security is strengthening the security posture of joint customers as enterprise AI adoption accelerates. Strong co-selling, executive alignment, and a growing pipeline across life sciences, enterprise software, financial services, insurance, and hospitality demonstrate a partnership that truly delivers. Together, Kong and Noma are putting security and governance at the center of enterprise AI adoption. * Rising Star: WWT, with Kong AI Gateway now live in its Advanced Technology Center (ATC), they're giving customers a hands-on environment to explore AI connectivity, governance, and security before deploying into production. The collaboration brings these capabilities into WWT's broader enterprise AI strategy and gives customers a practical path from experimentation to deployment. The ATC is the starting line, and we're excited about what's ahead. * Rising Star: Presidio has quickly built strong momentum with Kong, driving a growing pipeline of AI-focused opportunities across new customers, expansions, and renewals. Behind that momentum is an expanding bench of Presidio architects, consultants, and account teams bringing Kong into customer conversations through resell, co-sell, and influenced opportunities. With a strong foundation already in place, Kong and Presidio are turning AI opportunities into real business outcomes. * Rising Star: NTT DATA has grown its partnership with Kong from an initial collaboration in Japan with iQuattro into a truly strategic partnership, driven by multiple joint wins across large enterprises within Automobile, Media and FS sectors. Building on that success, the partnership has now expanded globally across the Americas, UK&I, Iberia, and Latin America. Beyond a growing portfolio of joint GTM initiatives and customer pursuits, we are taking the partnership even deeper through joint solution development within NTT DATA's AI Studio, creating the foundation for the next phase of our collaboration around AI and Agentic AI. * Americas GSI Partner of the Year: Infosys has translated its relationship with Kong into meaningful opportunities across enterprise software, manufacturing, energy, financial services, and retail. Strategic integrations with Infosys Topaz Fabric and the InfyMe platform further extend Kong's API and AI connectivity capabilities into enterprise solutions, creating new ways for customers to modernize and advance their AI strategies. * AI Innovation GSI Partner of the Year: Persistent Systems is pushing joint AI innovation forward across automotive, enterprise software, financial services, and payments. Its GenAI Hub integration puts Kong to work as the strategic AI gateway layer, giving enterprises the connectivity, governance, and control needed to move AI initiatives from experimentation into production. * Enterprise Integration & Kong Capability Partner of the Year: Cognizant has delivered significant impact across insurance, automotive, life sciences, financial services, and banking while building one of the strongest Kong migration practices in the ecosystem. With more than 300 Kong-badged or certified associates, Cognizant has invested deeply in the expertise required to help enterprises navigate complex API modernization and migration initiatives. * Solution Innovation GSI Partner of the Year: Wipro has embedded Kong API Gateway and Kong AI Gateway directly into WEGA, its agentic AI platform, establishing an orchestration and governance layer for enterprise AI. The integration is already fueling joint go-to-market opportunities across banking, retail, technology, travel and hospitality, entertainment, and professional services, turning solution innovation into tangible opportunities in the field. * EMEA GSI Partner of the Year: TCS has delivered joint wins and built a growing pipeline across energy, telecommunications, financial services, technology, aviation, and media. The partnership spans both API management and agentic AI governance, combining TCS's industry and delivery expertise with Kong's platform to address the evolving connectivity requirements of enterprises across EMEA. * Industry Excellence GSI Partner of the Year: Coforge stands out for translating deep expertise in financial services, insurance, and aviation into customer success with Kong. Its understanding of these complex industries lets our teams ground modernization solutions in each customer's business and technology environment, turning vertical expertise into joint wins and new opportunities for growth. About Kong Inc. Kong Inc., the AI Connectivity Company, is building the connectivity layer of AI. Trusted by the Fortune 500(R) and AI-native startups alike, Kong's unified API and AI platform enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI traffic - on any model, any cloud. For more information, visit www.konghq.com. SOURCE Kong Inc.