Kong Gateway Operator (KGO) 1.5 introduces enhancements that simplify installation, scaling, and management of Kong Gateway or Kubernetes Ingress, with a focus on improved integration with Kong Konnect. The update allows for the universal application of plugins across control planes, simplification in referencing Konnect control planes, and configuration improvements such as enhanced custom CA certificates to meet security requirements. New features include more descriptive service configurations, improved resilience through multi-replica KIC ControlPlane deployment, and new Prometheus metrics for better observability and performance monitoring. The release also addresses security concerns by replacing the deprecated kube-rbac-proxy with a built-in metrics access filter, aligning with Kubernetes-native practices. Users are encouraged to upgrade from version 1.3 or older to 1.4.1 before moving to 1.5 to avoid migration issues, and they are invited to discuss these innovations at KubeCon Europe in 2025.