Kong has announced the release of Kong Ingress Controller (KIC) 2.7, which includes enhancements such as the graduation of certain Kubernetes Gateway APIs (GatewayClass, Gateway, and HTTPRoute) to beta status, making them more readily accessible to users. The release also retains some APIs (TCPRoute, UDPRoute, TLSRoute, ReferenceGrant) in alpha, but they can be activated with a specific feature flag. Additionally, KIC 2.7 introduces more granular Prometheus metrics to improve visibility into configuration push failures, distinguishing between conflicts and other errors, and has updated plugin functionality to allow user-defined execution order, enhancing efficiency and security. Looking ahead, Kong aims to keep pace with the Kubernetes SIG group's innovations, with plans to support new features like GRPCRoute and HTTPRouteResponseModifier, and to advance existing alpha APIs to beta. The release promises continued development of the Gateway Operator, a tool for managing and upgrading Kong Gateway and KIC deployments.