Authority before commitment™

AI proposes.
Authority decides.

Delegate more work to AI without delegating away control. Kihan builds constitutional computing: a mathematical architecture that separates what AI proposes from what it is authorized to do.

Inktomi™, our first product, analyzes each consequential action before it is committed—checking the authority to proceed and preserving the evidence of what was decided and why.

Request a demo How it works
  • Works with Claude Code, Codex, MCP
  • Self-hosted
  • Forthcoming in IEEE Computer
The missing control

Access is not authority.

Access to a payment system does not, by itself, establish authority for a particular payment. Whether this payment, to this vendor, should happen now is a separate question.

Kihan separates capability from authority. Inktomi evaluates the proposed action before it takes effect, routes exceptions to the person who can authorize them, and leaves evidence of every decision.

How Inktomi differs

Not a guardrail. Not a gateway. A permit the tool checks.

Guardrails and model instructions

Ask the model to behave.

A model can be persuaded, confused or simply wrong, so a rule it is told to follow is only as strong as its compliance. Inktomi’s rules sit outside the model; the model never holds the authority.

Gateways and proxies

Watch the traffic that passes.

A gateway, including an MCP gateway, controls the calls routed through it. A call that goes around it, straight to the tool, is not stopped. A tool that requires an Inktomi permit refuses a direct call without one.

Policy engines and access control

Check a rule set or a credential.

They answer whether a request fits the rules, or whether a credential grants access to a system. Inktomi binds the decision to the exact action and its arguments, issues a signed single-use permit, and records which rule version decided it.

How Inktomi works alongside your existing controls

Why now

Agents are getting decisions. Few get controls.

15%+

of day-to-day work decisions expected to be made autonomously by AI agents by 2028, up from none in 2024.

Gartner, June 2025
40%+

of agentic AI projects expected to be cancelled by the end of 2027. Inadequate risk controls are one of the three causes.

Gartner, June 2025
63%

of breached organizations studied either had no AI governance policy or were still developing one.

IBM, Cost of a Data Breach 2025

For many Annex III high-risk systems, relevant EU AI Act obligations are scheduled to apply from 2 December 2027, including requirements concerning human oversight and record-keeping.

How it works

Proposal. Authorization. Enforcement.

One path leads to commitment. Where Inktomi enforces, every other path ends before it changes anything.

1 2 3 Agent proposes Proposal Inktomi decides Inktomi Committed, with a permit Committed No permit, no effect No effect No permit, no effect No effect
Diagram drawn from the Kihan logomark. A proposal rises from the bottom node to the junction, where Inktomi decides. One path continues up to commitment. The two receding paths, without a permit, end without effect.
  1. 1

    The agent proposes an action

    A specific payment, filing or record change, with the facts needed to evaluate it.

  2. 2

    Inktomi decides

    The action is evaluated against the governing authority. Exceptions go to the person who can authorize them.

  3. 3

    Only a permit commits

    Each integrated tool verifies the permit before it acts. Without one, the call is refused. Every decision is kept as evidence.

Inktomi

Every governed decision, in one place.

The console shows what each agent asked to do, what was decided and why, and what is waiting for a person. Every decision is kept in a tamper-evident record, and replay derives it again, so an auditor checks the decision itself, not just a log of it.

In the self-hosted profile, every Inktomi component runs on your infrastructure. Approvers sign in through your identity provider, every decision reaches your SIEM as a standard event, and a coverage report shows which paths are governed and which are not.

1.22 msMedian time for the governance decision in Kihan’s benchmark harness. Not end-to-end latency, which an evaluation measures on your own path.

Explore the product
Inktomi console overview: 319 decisions, 107 permitted, 159 refused and 53 held for approval, with refusals by reason and the most recent decisions.
The Inktomi console: decisions, approvals, replay and evidence.
Industries

Built for consequential, regulated work.

Financial servicesTransfers checked against the spending authority in force at that moment. HealthcarePatient record changes made only under a current, delegated approval. LegalCourt filings and privileged documents released only with the attorney’s approval. InsuranceClaim payments matched to the adjuster’s delegated authority. GovernmentDelegated authority checked when it is used. Sovereign and air-gapped operation are design requirements.

The architecture is described in a two-part feature forthcoming in IEEE Computer, December 2026 and January 2027.

See it in 30 minutes.

A live demonstration, with time for your questions.

Request a demo Download the one-pager (PDF)