Celebrating the 2025 Kong Innovator Awards Winners

Securing AI at Scale Without Compromising Performance

As LLMs became increasingly central to SeatGeek's operations, they faced a challenge that many organizations grappling with AI adoption will recognize: LLM requests looked just like ordinary HTTP traffic, making it nearly impossible to ensure trust and safety in AI-driven integrations. The risk of spoofed traffic was real, and the traditional solution (duplicating validation code across microservices) would have been both time-consuming and unsustainable.

The challenge:

• LLM requests were indistinguishable from regular HTTP traffic
• No centralized way to validate AI-driven traffic at scale
• Risk of spoofed traffic compromising system integrity
• Potential for weeks of duplicated development work across services

The innovator solution:

SeatGeek leveraged Kong Konnect to centralize LLM request validation at the API gateway layer, creating a single point of control that protects their entire platform without adding complexity to individual services.

The impact:

• Eliminated the risk of spoofed traffic through centralized validation
• Avoided duplicating code across more than a dozen microservices
• Reduced engineering time by 2–3 weeks of development per service
• Maintained a seamless user experience with no performance degradation
• Accelerated time-to-market for new AI capabilities

SeatGeek's approach demonstrates how the right API infrastructure can make AI adoption both secure and scalable, setting a new standard for trust and safety in AI-driven platforms.

Democratizing Event-Driven Data Through Intelligent APIs

In the world of industrial IoT and enterprise systems, event-driven architectures are essential. But they're also complex. Siemens faced a significant challenge: they needed to expose event-based data from Kafka as APIs in a way that was centralized, governed, and scalable. The lack of this capability blocked innovation, increased architectural debt, and led to teams across the organization building redundant infrastructure.

The challenge:

• No standardized way to expose Kafka messages as APIs
• Teams pushed to manage complex streaming infrastructure independently
• Decentralized data storage created silos and inefficiency
• Significant architectural debt hindered innovation

The innovator solution:

Siemens transformed Kong Konnect into a smart control and observability layer using Kong’s powerful plugin ecosystem. By positioning Kong between their event streams and API consumers, they created a unified gateway that abstracts away Kafka complexity while providing governance and observability.

The impact:

• Eliminated the need for decentralized data storage across teams
• Saved costs by reducing redundant infrastructure investments
• Accelerated integration time by approximately 70% for new API consumers
• Unlocked faster product innovation across the organization
• Created a repeatable pattern for event-driven API delivery

Siemens' innovative use of Kong showcases how API gateways can bridge the gap between complex event-driven architectures and developer-friendly APIs, making powerful data streams accessible to everyone who needs them.

Modernizing Global Shipping with Real-Time APIs

The shipping industry has long relied on Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) for communication, a technology that, while once revolutionary, now represents a significant bottleneck to modern operations. Seaco, a global leader in container leasing, felt these pain points acutely. EDI messages were failing silently, repair request workflows were manual and slow, and there was no way to deliver a consistent, modern experience across their customer base.

The challenge:

• EDI messages were failing without visibility until customers complained
• No uniform way to roll out improvements across the customer base
• Manual, cumbersome repair request communication flows

The innovator solution:

Seaco CTO, Damian Leach, spearheaded the efforts to replace their legacy EDI processes with modern, real-time APIs. By building a new API layer with Kong, they transformed communication workflows that once took days into real-time exchanges.

The impact:

• Real-time API request processing
• Reduced legacy EDI processes from days to moments
• Replaced antiquated communication methods with modern APIs
• Improved operational effectiveness across the organization
• Infused AI capabilities into their API processes for enhanced intelligence

Seaco's transformation illustrates how even industries with deep-rooted legacy systems can leverage modern API infrastructure to deliver superior customer experiences and operational efficiency.

Revolutionizing Government Digital Services at Scale

When a government agency manages thousands of APIs, the challenges of proliferation, maintenance, and governance become existential. HM Revenue & Customs, the UK's tax and customs authority, faced exactly this scenario. API sprawl was creating maintenance nightmares, development lifecycles were inefficient, and data governance risks were mounting.

The challenge:

• Managing and maintaining 1,800 APIs
• API proliferation created unsustainable overhead
• Inefficient development lifecycles slowed innovation
• Data governance and security exposure risks
• Need for better developer self-service capabilities

The innovator solution:

HMRC is implementing Kong to streamline API delivery through a self-service experience layer that empowers developers while maintaining the stringent security and governance requirements expected of a public sector organization.

The projected impact:

• 40–50% reduction in delivery time for new APIs
• Reduced developer workload through automation and self-service
• Estimated £500K–£1M in annual savings on development and maintenance
• Boosted productivity across development teams
• Improved data governance and compliance posture
• Enabled rapid prototyping and deployment while maintaining security

HMRC's initiative demonstrates that even the largest, most complex public sector organizations can modernize their digital infrastructure to deliver better services to citizens while reducing costs and improving security.

Unifying Global Payment Infrastructure

In the payments industry, complexity is the enemy of security and reliability. Verifone, a global leader in payment solutions, faced the challenge of managing multiple payment gateways across regions without a centralized platform. This led to code maintenance overhead, complex network rules, and difficulties in ensuring consistent security, authentication, and authorization across their diverse product portfolio.

The challenge:

• No centralized platform to manage APIs globally
• Operating multiple payment gateways across different regions
• High code maintenance overhead
• Complex network rules created security and operational risks
• Inconsistent implementation across product lines

The innovator solution:

Verifone implemented Kong to create a unified API management platform that optimizes security, authentication, and authorization across all their many payment solutions, including Omnichannel Payments, SoftPOS, BYOD, POSCloud, and Alternative Payment Methods.

The impact:

• Reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) and operational time
• Revenue boost through faster product delivery
• Increased productivity across engineering teams
• Improved compliance and resilience posture
• Enhanced security standardization across all payment channels

Going beyond implementation:

What sets Verifone apart is its deep partnership with Kong. They developed a custom MTLS plugin using the Kong Plugin Development Kit (PDK), co-developed an AppDynamics plugin with Kong Professional Services, and contributed to multiple other initiatives. Verifone isn't just leveraging Kong's capabilities — they're actively shaping Kong's feature roadmap, creating a true two-way growth journey.

Verifone's story shows how the right API infrastructure can transform global operations while fostering innovation through partnership and collaboration.

From AI Chaos to Governed Innovation

As one of the world's largest fashion retailers, H&M has always been at the forefront of innovation. But when teams across the organization began adopting LLMs independently, the company found itself in a precarious position. The decentralized approach created security risks, operational inefficiencies, and a complete lack of financial governance, making it nearly impossible to scale AI safely across the enterprise.

The challenge:

• Decentralized LLM adoption created security and compliance risks
• No visibility into AI usage or costs across the organization
• Operational inefficiency slowed innovation
• Lack of financial governance over AI investments
• No centralized logging or auditability for compliance
• High-risk environment threatened enterprise-wide AI scaling

The innovator solution:

H&M implemented Kong AI Gateway to pivot from a fragmented, high-risk model to a secure, scalable, and governed AI platform. Kong AI Gateway provides centralized control, observability, and governance for all AI traffic across the enterprise.

The anticipated impact:

• Accelerated innovation with AI service onboarding time reduced from weeks to days
• Immediate financial oversight and cost visibility
• Reduced LLM operational costs through intelligent routing
• Centralized rate limiting preventing runaway costs
• 100% centralized logging and auditability for compliance
• Secure, scalable foundation for enterprise-wide AI initiatives

H&M's transformation from AI chaos to governed innovation demonstrates that successful AI adoption at scale requires more than just technology — it requires AI governance, observability, and security built into the foundation.

Modernizing the Skies: A 10-Year Digital Transformation

Few industries are as complex and mission-critical as air travel, where every millisecond of latency can impact millions of passengers. United Airlines embarked on an ambitious 10-year strategy to modernize their customer-facing solutions and replace legacy systems with modern, best-of-breed technology. The challenges were immense: tool sprawl, latency issues, escalating costs, and data silos that made service discovery nearly impossible.

The challenge:

• Legacy systems caused tool sprawl and inefficiency
• Significant latency issues affecting customer experience
• Increased costs from duplicated efforts
• Limited service discoverability created data silos
• Need to modernize while maintaining operational reliability
• Managing thousands of APIs across hundreds of application teams

The innovator solution:

United Airlines chose Kong Konnect as the foundation for their digital transformation, creating a unified platform for managing APIs and microservices at scale.

The impact:

• Enabled reliable, secure, and scalable data exchange across all APIs and microservices
• Implemented organization-wide standardization for API design, development, publishing, and security
• Removed data silos across the enterprise
• Migrated to a cloud-native platform managing thousands of APIs
• Reduced API onboarding time by 2–3x
• Reduced latency for mission-critical workloads
• Significantly improved reliability and security posture

United's transformation demonstrates that even the most complex, mission-critical enterprises can successfully modernize their infrastructure when they have the right foundation. Their journey provides a blueprint for other large organizations facing similar challenges.

Driving Connected Car Innovation with Distributed Architecture

The Innovator of the Year award recognizes that project success comes not just from great technical implementation, but also visionary leadership. This year, that honor goes to BMW and Oliver Heinze, Product Owner - Connected Company, who spearheaded a revolutionary approach to managing ConnectedDrive traffic.

The challenge:

BMW was relying on a monolithic, centralized on-prem API gateway to handle all traffic for ConnectedDrive, the platform that keeps millions of BMW vehicles connected to digital services. This architecture was showing its age:

• Data center availability constraints
• Port availability limitations
• Lack of scalability for growing connected vehicle fleet
• Network latencies exceeding 250ms
• Centralized dependencies creating bottlenecks

The innovator solution:

Oliver Heinze led the adoption of a distributed Kong architecture where every microservice has its own API gateway. This revolutionary approach eliminated the central bottleneck and allowed for direct, efficient communication between services.

The impact:

• Latencies dropped from >250ms to <30ms — an 88% improvement
• Enhanced reliability for BMW customers worldwide
• Simplified architecture reducing dependencies
• Enabled direct communication between microservices
• Improved scalability to support growing connected vehicle fleet
• Better resilience through distributed architecture

The leadership factor:

What makes Oliver and the BMW team deserving of Innovator of the Year isn't just the technical achievement: it's the vision to challenge conventional wisdom. While many organizations default to centralized API gateways, Oliver recognized that a distributed approach would better serve BMW's needs. His leadership in driving this transformation has not only improved the experience for millions of BMW customers but has also influenced how other organizations think about API gateway architecture.

Special recognition and thanks to the BMW extended team: Amit Dube, Gayane Alaverdyan, Puneeth Nanjundaswamy, Adrian Cornoiu, Omnia Abdelghani, Cristian Burca, Shristi Satvik, Alexandru Oproiu, Mario Zelaschi, Sunny Nazar, Florin Neag, Manuel Leppert, Carolina Tozzi, Felix Willnecker, Peter Schultes, Ines Attia, Zara Butt, Fatjon Nebiu, Tillmann Schumm, Michael Wolf, Oliver Beider, Lucas Buschlinger, Markus Moeltner, Vincenzo Bianco, Niko Tapio Vidgren, Albiona Dzemaili, Victor del Razo, Elias Hazboun, Gianmario Colli, Tobias Uelpenich, Anastasiya Samarchuk, Dara Jusoh, Armin Skollik, Christian Janz, Andrea Mellano, Paolo Falvo, Lars Detempli, Lukas Hügle, and Matteo Belladelli.

The 2025 Kong Innovator Awards winners show us what's possible when innovation meets the right infrastructure. Each of these organizations chose to think differently, to challenge the status quo, and to build solutions that don't just solve today's problems but anticipate tomorrow's opportunities. They've set new standards for their industries and provided blueprints that others can follow.

As we look ahead, we're inspired by what these innovators have achieved and excited to see what they — and the broader Kong community — will build next. The future of APIs and AI is being written by visionaries like these, and we're honored to be part of their journey.

Congratulations to all of our 2025 Kong Innovator Award winners!

Want to learn more about how Kong can help your organization innovate? Reach out to our team to start your transformation journey.