AI Powering AKKA's Breakout Moment

or startups, timing is everything. Too early to market and users are overwhelmed by the technology. Too late, and the first-mover advantage is gone. Most have only a small window of opportunity to best rivals and win over early customers. 

That is, unless you’re Akka. 

Akka's story is emblematic of what sometimes happens with foundational innovations in tech: they often take years—or even decades—to find their scaled market fit. Virtualization technology, which underpins modern cloud computing, was first developed in the 1960s by IBM but didn’t achieve mainstream adoption until the mid-2000s with the rise of Amazon Web Services (AWS). Similarly, artificial intelligence (AI) research began in the 1950s, yet it’s taken significant advancements in computational power, large datasets, and deep learning algorithms to unlock the potential we are seeing right now.

In Akka’s case, its distributed computing architecture was ahead of its time, solving problems that many industries hadn’t yet encountered at scale. The AI revolution has now revealed the true value of Akka’s technology, as the same principles that made it a leader in distributed systems—scalability, fault tolerance, and real-time processing—are now critical for building reliable AI platforms.

A Long Road to the Cutting Edge 

For the past 20 years, the distributed computing pioneer used by Walmart, Apple, and Starbucks was unknowingly waiting for its breakout moment: the AI revolution. Or as current CEO Tyler Jewell puts it: Akka creator Jonas Bonér has been “building an AI platform for 20 years, he just didn't realize it until AI came.”

Jonas built the Akka platform around the Actor Model, a computational framework originally created way back in 1973 by Carl Hewitt. The Actor Model revolutionized distributed computing by enabling systems to handle concurrency and fault tolerance through lightweight, isolated "actors" that communicate asynchronously. This foundational approach allowed Akka to address the challenges of distributed systems for applications at scale long before AI became a focus for every company in the Fortune 2000.

“Companies as old as us, they have a tendency to be slow to change,” Tyler said, commenting on the sea change in a recent interview. “Right now, we’re on the cutting edge.”

‍Skepticism to Obsession 

Akka almost didn’t make it. Several years ago, the company nearly filed for bankruptcy. But a $25 million funding round led by Tyler as an investor at Dell Technologies Capital kept it alive. At the time, Akka “didn’t have a commercial product, didn’t have market share, but the technology itself was so widely used,” Tyler said, that it warranted one last shot at success. 

Soon after, customers started bringing up AI and the challenges of building systems to support this old-is-new-again technology. Initially, both Jonas and Tyler were skeptical  that the hype would translate to commercial use for Akka. But after exploring the technology himself, Tyler was quickly convinced of the opportunity. The Akka team kept hearing from companies how unreliable AI systems were. Dissatisfied with the options available, some were even building their own internal AI development platforms. It was clear the market needed a more robust solution, and Tyler knew Akka was the answer. 

Akka's bend towards AI was not a sudden shift but a natural evolution of its distributed computing expertise. The same principles that made Akka a leader in distributed systems—scalability, fault tolerance, and real-time processing—are now critical for AI platforms. By consolidating orchestration, memory, and streaming into a unified system — one that delivers self-protecting and self-governing runtimes — Akka has transitioned from solving distributed computing challenges to addressing the complexities of AI. 

Within a few weeks, Akka released its first AI product, signaling the seriousness with which the company was taking this pivot: “We took a couple of people offline for a week … and we realized AI systems are distributed systems. It was a perfect pairing,” he said. 

‍An AI Beacon

It’s not just Akka’s technology that’s meeting the AI moment. Internally, the company is embodying the AI mentality throughout operations. 

Employees are expected to spend their days in agentic interfaces, not toggling through various applications. New hires are evaluated based on their ability to use AI tools. The company is planning to “vibe coding” its own internal software to reduce the reliance on external vendors. Akka is even redesigning its website for an era where people talk to AI agents, not search engines. As a testament to that energy, at a recent sales kickoff non-technical teams even used Akka to build their own software. 

“Not only are we this reliable AI platform but we also have to be a beacon for how you use AI to run a business,” said Tyler. “We’re 20 years old, but you can’t let that 20-year history hold you back. You have to have a ‘Series A’ mindset.” 

We talked to Tyler to learn more about how the self-described “middle-age” startup is preparing for its AI moment. 

‍‘We can put outcomes in writing’ 

Today, companies are experimenting with different AI tools, but haven’t yet settled on their preferred set-up. In fact, the majority of CIOs report regret over their early AI buying decisions. 

The problem? Many of the nascent AI solutions lack important proof points. Without extensive customer use, early kinks haven’t been worked out. As a result, customers are struggling to actually deliver value from the technology. 

That’s not the case at Akka. With a long list of real-world proof points, the company can confidently promise outcomes others can’t: a secure, consolidated foundation for secure, trustworthy, and cost-effective AI agents. 

“Many of these AI platforms are young technologies. They often demo really well, but companies quickly find out that getting and keeping the systems in production is complex and expensive,” said Tyler. “When companies experience those pains, we come in and do everything they do with none of the pain, and have a 20-year track record that proves it.” 

It’s a powerful sales pitch for C-suite leaders eager to show progress on AI, but concerned over releasing embryonic technology into their IT environments. While other point solutions lack critical, enterprise-grade features, like security and governance, Akka customers get a battle-tested platform with guarantees around availability, performance, accuracy, and safety. 

“We can put outcomes in writing, to the point where there are severe financial penalties for us if we don't deliver,” Tyler said. 

Industry is responding to both the tech and those performance guarantees. Akka’s technologies power more than 100,000 systems across a third of the Fortune 500. Its AI platform has tripled in growth annually in the last two years running.

‍The Akka advantage

Akka’s platform was built around the concept of distributed computing, an architecture that improves the speed, accuracy, and the overall quality of the AI system. 

AI agents must be able to process large amounts of real-time contextual data at ultra-fast latency, and maintain this reliability as the number of concurrent users grows. Otherwise, users will face long lag times, inaccurate responses and AI agents that suddenly stall. Once in production, companies must also guard against unexpected issues that can undermine reliability and increase costs. And they must continually evaluate and enhance performance. 

Akka consolidates the different components of emerging AI systems — orchestration, memory, agents, and streaming — into one platform, along with mandatory security features like identity management. In action, Akka automatically sends workloads to the most appropriate site and proactively reacts to activity to enhance performance while minimizing compute resources. As a result, AI agents are always running on the most optimal foundation, providing the control and reliability enterprises need to scale use across employees and customers. 

“Most organizations are still buying AI frameworks. When they finally flip the switch and decide they need an AI platform, we show up,” said Tyler. 

After 20 years, most startups don’t find themselves waiting for customer demand to catch-up with the technology. But for Akka, AI is a chance for redemption — particularly for long-tenured employees ready to see the company get the recognition it deserves.

"It's an exciting place to be, to feel like you have no product gaps. We're ready to rock and roll," said Tyler.

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Dell Technologies Capital first invested in Akka in early 2020.