The acquisition combines an open-source, model-independent coding assistant with enterprise AI governance, aiming to give developers greater flexibility while reducing vendor lock-in.
Anaconda, a provider of open-source software packages and AI development tools, has acquired Kilo, an open-source, model-independent AI coding assistant, to strengthen its AI development platform while preserving the project’s open-source nature.
Kilo is capable of running independently of any large language model (LLM). It allows developers to switch between providers, from proprietary to open-source and self-hosted models. It reduces vendor lock-in and allows organisations to choose which LLM to use based on performance, cost, and applicability to the task.
As per the company’s statement, organisations have two choices regarding the use of AI coding assistants: either to restrict the developer to use only one AI tool or allow developers to use multiple AI tools without organisational oversight.
The coding assistant is already helping over three million developers, processing nearly ten trillion tokens each month, and offering access to over 500 AI models from over 60 vendors. Moreover, the popularity of the project is very high within the developer community, with over 26,000 stars on GitHub and 3,000 forks.
Under the terms of the deal, the stewardship of the GitHub repository and the community of developers working with it will be passed on to the new owner as well. It was stated by the company that Kilo will remain open-source and get additional investment.
The company also plans to integrate Kilo into its existing AI development platform while continuing to support developers using Visual Studio Code, JetBrains IDEs, and command-line tools, enabling them to retain their existing workflows while benefiting from integrated governance and model management.
