Innovative Partnership: ADEO and Kong Join Forces to Enhance GenAI Capabilities

ADEO Partners with Kong to Accelerate GenAI Adoption

In a significant move towards enhancing generative AI capabilities, Kong Inc., a prominent player in API management and AI connectivity technologies, has officially joined forces with ADEO, the European frontrunner in home improvement. This collaboration marks a pivotal step in ADEO's journey to efficiently scale its generative AI initiatives while ensuring robust governance, security, and compliance.

The partnership centers around the deployment of the Kong AI Gateway, which will serve as a comprehensive control plane for ADEO's large language model (LLM) traffic. This centralized platform aims to standardize access across various provider models, facilitating compliance management and advanced monitoring, thereby optimizing both security and cost associated with AI deployment.

ADEO has been a trendsetter in digital transformation over the past few years, significantly revamping its e-commerce, in-store systems, and supply chain platforms. Supported by Kong, the company has built a resilient API infrastructure that has become the backbone of its digital endeavors. As ADEO's GenAI initiatives expanded, multiple teams began working with diverse LLM providers, sparking the need for a more cohesive approach to governance and security amid rapid scaling.

According to Gwendal Yviquel, Group Project Manager of AI Capabilities at ADEO, the partnership was essential to tackle the dual challenge of maintaining service levels across diverse partners while leveraging a multi-provider strategy for their AI solutions. Yviquel states, “With the support of the Kong AI Gateway, we can integrate mature API governance practices with our emerging LLM landscape, thereby ensuring scalable and controlled AI usage that aligns with our innovation objectives.”

The architectural framework that ADEO has put in place with the Kong AI Gateway aims to harmonize LLM interactions across the organization. This design creates a consistent control point, emphasizing standardized access and security while optimizing token consumption and ensuring end-to-end visibility in AI operations.

Marco Palladino, CTO and Co-Founder of Kong, expressed the company’s pride in supporting ADEO as it expands and industrializes its AI services globally. “By prioritizing AI governance and connectivity, ADEO is laying the groundwork to utilize AI in a secure, efficient, and economically viable manner,” Palladino commented.

Through this innovative partnership, ADEO seeks to shed light on several critical goals:

1. Avoid LLM Vendor Lock-in: By intentionally designing a multi-provider model, ADEO separates AI consumers from the underlying LLM suppliers, enabling a flexible approach without being tied down to a single vendor.
2. Seamless Scalability: The initiative will allow ADEO to scale its AI strategy seamlessly, transitioning workloads between public LLM APIs and privately hosted models without disrupting application functionality.
3. Long-term Flexibility: Given the ever-evolving dynamics of performance, costs, and regulatory demands, the API-first abstraction ensures ADEO remains adaptable.
4. Structured AI Assets: The company plans to manage AI resources similarly to APIs, focusing on clear ownership, documentation, lifecycle management, and tracking consumption.

To discover more about the Kong AI Gateway, visit konghq.com/products/kong-ai-gateway.

About Kong Inc.

Kong Inc. is at the forefront of API and AI connectivity technology, working to create the essential connectivity layer within the AI landscape. Trusted by numerous Fortune 500 companies and innovative AI startups, Kong’s unified platform allows organizations to secure, manage, and monetize their AI and API interactions efficiently across various models and cloud environments.

About ADEO

ADEO stands as a leader in the home improvement sector, principally known for brands like Leroy Merlin and Bricocenter. The company has established its presence worldwide with a turnover of €32.7 billion and maintains a commitment to offering sustainable solutions across its vast network of over 1,300 points of sales worldwide. The organization emphasizes social responsibility and environmental stewardship, ensuring a positive impact in every community it serves.