Kong Adds AI Cost, Credential and Observability Controls to Konnect

Kong introduced AI Management in Kong Konnect on November 4, 2026, adding controls for AI spending, credentials, governed resource discovery and observability as enterprises move agents into production. The cost-management, credential, context and basic observability components come with Kong AI Gateway on Konnect rather than as separate add-ons, so teams already running that gateway can use them without another purchase.

The broader release also introduces governed discovery for models, Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers and agents. Kong is addressing four operational gaps: spending that cannot be assigned to a team or application, credentials embedded in agent code or prompts, APIs repeatedly wrapped as agent tools, and the absence of a consolidated account of an agent’s activity.

Those gaps become harder to manage when one task crosses multiple models, MCP servers, APIs, tools and other agents. Putting controls in the connectivity path allows policy and usage data to follow those interactions instead of being reconstructed by each application team. AI Cost Management combines gateway consumption data with request identity and context to attribute spending to business units, engineering teams, applications, agents,…