**What is an AI agent registry?**
An AI agent registry is a centralized, governed discovery layer that allows enterprises to manage and control which AI capabilities—such as models, MCP servers, and tools—are sanctioned for use. It enables AI agents to autonomously find and connect to the resources they need without requiring developers to manually hard-code every connection.
**Why do enterprises need a discovery layer for AI agents?**
As organizations scale their AI initiatives, manually wiring agents to individual tools and models becomes impossible to maintain. A discovery layer provides self-service capabilities for agents, ensuring they can dynamically find the resources they need to complete tasks while strictly adhering to enterprise governance, security, and access control boundaries.
**How can developers govern which models an AI agent can use?**
Developers and platform teams can govern AI agents by establishing a lifecycle: Register → Approve → Publish → Discover → Consume. Using an AI registry, teams can create specific, role-based views. This means an engineering agent will only discover coding models, while a finance agent will only have access to models and tools approved for financial data.
**What problems does MCP solve vs. an AI registry?**
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an important standard that solves the problem of *how* an agent connects to a specific tool or data source. An AI registry solves the problem of *discovery and governance*—determining which MCP servers, models, and tools exist, who owns them, and which agents are actually authorized to use them.
**Does Kong offer an MCP server directory?**
Kong AI Registry functions as much more than a simple MCP server directory. While it does allow you to register, catalog, and discover MCP servers, it acts as a comprehensive AI-native discovery layer that also governs models, agents, tools, resources, and skills across the enterprise.