# Why Kong for unified API and AI connectivity
AI, APIs, agents, events — every disruptive technology needs a connectivity layer that won't blink. That's Kong.
## KONG POWERS RAPID AI INNOVATION AT ENTERPRISE SCALE
## Build your innovation factory.
AI agents, APIs, events, microservices — they're the raw materials. But raw materials don't ship products. You need a unified API and AI platform that connects them, governs them, and turns them into something that actually moves the business. That's your API and AI connectivity platform. That's Kong.
## The Unified API and AI Platform
AI value is made real when exposed as secure, governed API services. Events and real-time data become true data products when packaged as self-serve APIs. Microservices drive value when service-to-service communication is driven by consistent, scalable APIs.
The API is at the heart of every major story your business cares about.
However, APIs don’t just appear out of thin air. APIs must be built. APIs must be run in production. APIs must be secure. APIs must be discoverable. And the entire API lifecycle must be governable. And all of this has to be done securely, reliably, and at high scale and performance — without breaking the bank.
This is where the API platform comes into play. And this is where Kong Konnect is essential.
## Without Kong
## With Kong
Historically, there hasn’t been a single API platform that could offer the functionality needed across API teams. Kong has changed this with the API platform trusted by more than 700 customers across the world.
Read on to see where and how you can use Kong to drive greater API value through platform consolidation and unification of the API developer experience.
## Get time with an API expert.
## Implementing Kong: Days zero, one, and two
Kong isn’t just a piece of technology. It’s also the people and processes that will help your API platform practice evolve and mature over days zero, one, and two operations. Here’s how that typically unfolds at Kong.
## Day zero: Work with the best in the space
On day zero, there's nothing to operate. But that doesn’t stop you from working with the best-of-the-best support, customer success, partner ecosystem, and professional services teams to ensure you have in-depth, actionable plans around migration, platform rollout, developer adoption, and more.
## Day one: Platform rollout
Spin up your API platform and onboard your engineering teams, business teams, and the non-human API stakeholders (think AI agents) onto the various Kong API products they need to do their jobs well.
We work with you to ensure your various platform stakeholders are ready to get started with everything Kong has to offer.
At this point, a central API or platform team is typically still responsible for all API and infrastructure provisioning, but you're preparing for day-two operations where access is totally self-service and governed as code.
## Day two: Federated governance through APIOps and self-serve API infrastructure
Automate guardrails with the industry-leading APIOps and automation solution from Kong. Enforce best practices through automated, full-lifecycle governance with our Admin API, Kubernetes Operator, or decK declarative CLI tool.
Once automated guardrails are in place, open up the API infra flood gates and enable federated, self-serve access to API infrastructure. Enable developers to host infra locally, deploy hybrid gateways, or fully in the cloud through our serverless and dedicated cloud gateway offerings.
This leads to both time savings and fool-proof governance with automatic enforcement of security, reliability, and DevEx policies across the entire platform.
## More speed. More scale. More value.
More reasons to go with Kong. But don't take our word for it. See what analysts and customers have to say.
## G2 customer review
“Amazing & lightning fast API gateway. It's lightweight, easy to install and configure, and super fast.”
## Gartner Peer Insights™
“Kong Konnect is a really powerful platform that any of organization of any size can use. I like its high performance, that it's scalable and easy to use.”