Persistent Systems and Kong Partner to Tackle the Governance Challenge of Enterprise AI

As enterprises accelerate the deployment of generative AI and agentic AI systems, many are discovering that the real challenge is no longer access to models, but how those systems are governed, secured, and integrated across increasingly complex infrastructure environments. That challenge is at the center of a newly announced strategic partnership between Persistent Systems and Kong, aimed at helping enterprises move AI from isolated pilots into scalable production environments.

The partnership combines Persistent’s enterprise modernization and digital engineering capabilities with Kong’s API and AI connectivity platform. Together, the companies are positioning the collaboration as a way for organizations to implement a unified governance and connectivity layer capable of managing APIs, AI traffic, data services, and agentic workflows across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

AI Deployment Is Becoming an Infrastructure Problem

For the past several years, enterprise AI initiatives have largely focused on experimentation. Companies raced to test large language models, internal copilots, and AI-powered automation systems. But as those systems move toward enterprise-wide deployment, organizations are encountering operational issues tied to governance, integration, compliance, and scalability.

Persistent and Kong argue that APIs are now evolving beyond traditional integration tools into the operational control layer for enterprise AI. As AI systems increasingly connect models, data pipelines, applications, and autonomous agents, enterprises need centralized mechanisms for security, observability, and policy enforcement. Without those controls, AI deployments can quickly become fragmented and difficult to manage at scale.

The partnership is designed to address that issue by enabling enterprises to deploy Kong’s governed connectivity layer across APIs, AI services, and data systems, while leveraging Persistent’s engineering-led implementation capabilities. According to the announcement, the collaboration will also help organizations modernize legacy API environments and reduce operational complexity in hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructures.

The Rise of AI Connectivity Platforms

Kong has increasingly positioned itself around what it describes as the “connectivity layer of AI.” The company, which is widely known for its API gateway and API management technologies, has expanded its focus toward managing AI traffic, AI gateways, and policy enforcement for model interactions.

That infrastructure layer is becoming increasingly important as enterprises adopt multi-model AI strategies and more advanced agentic systems. Rather than relying on a single model or cloud provider, many organizations are now orchestrating workflows that span internal APIs, external SaaS tools, vector databases, foundation models, and autonomous agents.

Under the partnership, Kong’s AI Gateway platform will integrate alongside Persistent’s GenAI Hub, which Persistent uses to support enterprise AI deployment and orchestration workflows. The companies say the combined offering will provide built-in governance controls including centralized access management, Personally Identifiable Information protection, observability, and policy-driven safeguards across AI interactions.

The collaboration also highlights growing enterprise interest in Model Context Protocol-based architectures and agentic AI systems that require tighter orchestration and governance across distributed environments.

Persistent Continues Expanding Its Enterprise AI Ecosystem

The announcement reflects Persistent’s broader strategy of expanding its role in enterprise AI modernization. The company has steadily built partnerships across cloud infrastructure, AI platforms, and enterprise technology ecosystems as organizations shift from AI experimentation toward production deployment.

Persistent currently operates across digital engineering, cloud modernization, data analytics, intelligent automation, and enterprise software development. The company says it now employs more than 27,500 people across 21 countries and has increasingly focused its messaging around AI-led and platform-driven enterprise transformation initiatives.

For Kong, the partnership strengthens its reach into large enterprise deployments that require systems integration expertise and long-term modernization support. The company has become increasingly focused on enabling organizations to secure and govern AI traffic regardless of which models or cloud providers they use.

Enterprise AI Competition Is Shifting Toward Governance

The partnership also reflects a broader industry shift in how enterprises evaluate AI readiness. Access to foundation models is becoming increasingly commoditized, while governance, interoperability, and operational reliability are emerging as key differentiators.

As AI systems become embedded deeper into enterprise operations, organizations are under growing pressure to ensure that AI interactions remain auditable, secure, compliant, and observable across increasingly distributed environments. That is particularly important in regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, telecommunications, and large-scale enterprise services where governance failures can create operational and legal risks.

Persistent and Kong are effectively betting that the next phase of enterprise AI adoption will depend less on standalone models and more on the infrastructure layers capable of governing how intelligence moves across enterprise systems.