Kong Inc. has joined the ServiceNow Control Tower Alliance as a founding member, bringing its API connectivity and AI traffic governance technology into an ecosystem focused on securing enterprise AI deployments. The collaboration centers on the ServiceNow Super Intelligence Control Tower, which is designed to help organizations discover, secure, govern, observe and measure AI systems. Kong will contribute controls for the APIs, large language models (LLMs), Model Context Protocol (MCP) connections and AI agents that increasingly underpin enterprise applications.
The Challenge: Enforcing AI Governance at Runtime
Enterprise AI governance is becoming more complicated as organizations deploy agents that can retrieve business data, call external tools, invoke APIs and delegate tasks to other agents. Policies that specify which systems an agent may access are useful only if those rules can be enforced when the agent actually makes a request.
That is the problem Kong is targeting through its AI connectivity platform. Its Kong Konnect platform provides centralized management for API and AI traffic, while Kong AI Gateway is designed to apply security and access controls to interactions involving LLMs, tools and agents.
The distinction matters because AI governance involves more than cataloging models or documenting internal policies. Organizations also need mechanisms to identify requests, restrict access, monitor interactions and apply rules consistently across different models and infrastructure providers.
ServiceNow’s Control Tower provides the organizational layer for discovering and governing AI assets. Kong’s contribution focuses on the traffic connecting those assets to the services and data they use. The intended combination links enterprise governance policies with enforcement at the point where AI systems interact with other applications. Kong Inc.+1
MCP and Agent-to-Agent Traffic Expand the Security Surface
Kong says its contribution will cover LLM, MCP and agent-to-agent traffic. MCP, or Model Context Protocol, provides a standardized way for AI applications to connect with external tools and data sources.
These connections create additional governance requirements. An agent may have permission to use a particular model but still need separate authorization to access a database, invoke an API or pass information to another agent. Organizations must also consider whether sensitive information can leak through prompts, tool responses or generated content.
By placing policy enforcement in the connectivity layer, Kong aims to give enterprises a consistent way to manage these interactions without rebuilding controls every time they change models, providers or deployment environments.
The approach is relevant to enterprises using a mix of cloud services, proprietary models and open-weight models. However, the announcement does not establish that every connection or AI framework will be covered automatically. The practical scope will depend on integration support, deployment architecture and how traffic is routed through the enforcement layer.
A Broader Ecosystem for Enterprise AI Governance
ServiceNow announced the Control Tower Alliance on October 28, 2026, with founding members including Anthropic, Amazon Web Services, Cisco, HiddenLayer, NVIDIA, Okta, OpenAI, Stripe, WitnessAI and Zenity, alongside Kong. ServiceNow Newsroom+1
The membership brings together companies working across AI models, cloud infrastructure, identity, security, governance and usage measurement. The alliance is intended to provide curated integrations and pretested partner solutions through the ServiceNow Super Intelligence Control Tower.
Kong and ServiceNow plan to collaborate on integrated solutions, put Kong’s offerings through ServiceNow’s qualification and certification process, and develop joint offerings for customers and partners. The announcement does not specify a general availability date or provide detailed deployment timelines for the resulting integrations.
The partnership also reflects a broader industry direction. As AI systems spread across enterprise software, no single model provider or cloud platform necessarily controls every component of an organization’s AI environment. Businesses need ways to manage risk across those boundaries.
What It Means for Enterprise AI Teams
For technology leaders, the partnership could help connect AI governance policies with the technical controls that determine what agents can do. It may be particularly relevant to organizations deploying agents across multiple cloud providers or integrating them with sensitive enterprise applications.
There are still implementation questions to resolve. Enterprises will need to assess policy consistency, identity propagation, audit logging, latency, failure handling and the ability to stop unauthorized or unexpected agent activity. They will also need to determine how governance responsibilities are divided between ServiceNow, Kong and other security or infrastructure providers.
The alliance does not eliminate the need for enterprise security architecture or internal governance processes. Instead, it offers a framework for coordinating controls across different parts of the AI stack.
Kong’s role gives the partnership a focus on API and AI traffic enforcement rather than governance visibility alone. Whether that translates into simpler deployments and stronger runtime controls will depend on the integrations delivered and how well they fit customers’ existing environments.
As enterprises move AI agents from experimentation into operational workflows, connecting policy, runtime enforcement and auditability is likely to become a more prominent requirement for enterprise AI infrastructure.
Market Landscape
Enterprise AI governance is evolving from centralized AI inventories and policy documentation toward runtime enforcement, security monitoring and usage measurement.
- AI governance platforms: ServiceNow provides a centralized view of AI assets, ownership, governance and operational oversight.
- AI connectivity and API management: Kong focuses on controlling the connections between agents, LLMs, APIs, tools and enterprise systems.
- AI security: Providers such as Cisco, HiddenLayer, WitnessAI and Zenity address different aspects of AI security and agent risk.
- Cloud and model infrastructure: AWS, NVIDIA, Anthropic and OpenAI represent other parts of the ecosystem, from cloud infrastructure to model development.
- Emerging opportunity: Enterprises need interoperable controls that work across different models and cloud environments without creating separate governance processes for every deployment.
The competitive question is how effectively these platforms connect governance policies with enforceable controls at runtime. The ServiceNow–Kong collaboration is designed to bridge those layers, although implementation details and availability will determine its practical impact.
Top Insights
- Kong joins ServiceNow’s Control Tower Alliance as a founding member, contributing API connectivity and AI traffic governance for enterprise AI applications.
- Kong AI Gateway targets LLM, MCP and agent-to-agent traffic, helping enforce security and access policies across AI connections.
- ServiceNow’s Super Intelligence Control Tower is designed to centralize AI discovery, security, governance, observability and value measurement.
- The alliance includes 11 founding members spanning AI models, cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, identity management and usage measurement.
- Kong and ServiceNow plan joint integrations and offerings, but detailed availability timelines and implementation requirements have not been announced.
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