Item 1. Business

Overview

Akamai's mission is to power and protect life online.

Since 1998, Akamai has developed and provided solutions for global enterprises to build, secure and accelerate their applications and digital experiences. Our massively distributed global network is comprised of core and distributed compute sites, more than 4,300 edge points-of-presence in approximately 130 countries and over 700 cities, and our underlying global network integrated with roughly 1,200 network partners. With this scale and distribution, Akamai has visibility and insight into traffic volumes, congestion, attack patterns, vulnerabilities and other activities across the internet's complex intersections of networks and systems. Leveraging these insights, Akamai offers solutions designed to protect our customers from threats and attacks, along with full-stack compute solutions to build and deliver distributed, low-latency applications on our globally distributed network.

Today, billions of people work, learn, shop, bank, communicate and do more online globally. We firmly believe that the internet’s role in transforming the way we exchange ideas and information and conduct business is more vital than ever. Our strategy is to help continue to power and protect business online by offering security and compute services with the industry-leading reliability, scale and expertise our customers need to grow their business with confidence.

Our Solutions

We provide solutions in three core offerings: security, delivery and compute. We also provide services and support for our customers as they utilize our solutions. As part of our mission to make life better for millions of businesses, trillions of times per day, Akamai is committed to enabling our customers to benefit from the latest technology developments. In recent years, artificial intelligence ("AI") has been a major focus of corporate initiatives for enterprises in multiple verticals and across the globe. To help our customers seize on the power and potential of AI, we provide cloud computing infrastructure that they can use to build AI-powered applications; cybersecurity solutions, powered by AI and automation, designed to defend against prompt injections, data exfiltration and toxic outputs; generative AI to improve the speed and efficiency of identifying and investigating malicious or suspect activity; and throughput on our global intelligent network to enable the large volumes of data required to power AI-powered applications and facilitate effective real-time protections.

Security

Our security solutions, threat intelligence and global operations team work to provide defense in depth to safeguard enterprise data and applications. Customers trust Akamai to help keep infrastructure, websites, applications, application

Table of Contents

programming interfaces ("APIs"), networks and users safe from a multitude of cyberattacks and online threats while improving performance. With insight and automation derived from the world’s most distributed global network, our solutions blend robust automation with customizable protections and managed security services to enable businesses to effectively manage risk and maximize protections. Akamai’s web application and API protection solutions protect web, API and mobile app traffic from attacks that take advantage of security flaws, protection from malicious automated attacks, credential abuse and account takeover, client-side protections that protect end customers from malicious or vulnerable first- and third-party client-side scripts that can lead to audience hijacking and distributed denial of service ("DDoS") mitigation. As adversaries relentlessly refine their evasion techniques, it requires continuous innovation in threat detection and specialized defenses to stay ahead of advanced bot and abuse attacks. Our Bot & Abuse portfolio provides tailored, specialized solutions to help customers protect against these threats. Akamai Account Protector offers full account lifecycle protections including the ability to defend against account takeover and opening abuse, adversarial bot protection, protection against credential stuffing, inventory scalping and hoarding. Akamai Content Protector also helps businesses protect their intellectual property, reputation and revenue potential with solutions designed to stop persistent scrapers from stealing content that can be used for malicious purposes like competitive intelligence/espionage, inventory manipulation, site performance degradation and counterfeiting.

In May 2023, Akamai acquired Neosec, Inc. ("Neosec"), which enabled us to offer a solution we refer to as API Security that works to discover and audit APIs and monitor API activity. API Security complements our application and API security portfolio by extending our visibility into the growing API threat landscape to detect and respond to threats and abuse detection and operates using a response platform based on data and behavioral analytics. In June 2024, Akamai acquired Noname Security Ltd. ("Noname Security"), one of the top API security vendors in the market. This enhanced Akamai’s API Security solution and accelerated our ability to meet growing customer demand and market requirements as the use of APIs continues to expand. Akamai also expects to gain greater scale with Noname Security’s additional sales and marketing resources and established channel and alliance relationships. As a result of the acquisition, Akamai expects to offer a complete API security suite enabling customers to better discover “shadow” APIs and detect vulnerabilities and attacks. Akamai’s enhanced offering expects to have greater deployment choices for customers and access to a portfolio of technology integrations that we believe is unrivaled in the market.

We also offer microservice and application component protection that analyzes and protects application traffic that moves between application components like containers, APIs and workloads. This is part of a growing set of solutions designed to help businesses implement a Zero Trust security architecture. Our acquisition of Guardicore Ltd. ("Guardicore") in October 2021 has enabled us to deliver the Akamai Guardicore Platform, which simplifies enterprise security with broad visibility and granular controls through one console. The Akamai Guardicore Platform simply and efficiently enables Zero Trust through a fully integrated combination of microsegmentation, Zero Trust Network Access, multi-factor authentication, domain name system ("DNS") firewall and threat hunting. Guardicore’s microsegmentation solution helps our customers prevent malicious lateral movement in their network through precise segmentation policies, visuals of activity within their IT environment and network security alerts. The platform leverages AI to simplify user experience, vulnerability assessments, compliance and incident response, helping to protect businesses from the threat of ransomware. AI network labeling examines how assets are behaving and suggests labels to help security teams apply appropriate controls, and generative AI allows security professionals to ask natural language questions of their network, instead of manually poring through logs, to drastically expedite a variety of use cases like compliance scoping and incident response.

Compute

Akamai's cloud computing services, which we sometimes refer to as compute, include compute, storage, networking, database and container management services that are required to build, deploy and secure applications and workloads. The cloud computing services running on Akamai's compute platform enable companies to distribute workloads and applications across our core to edge infrastructure to help solve the cost, performance and scale challenges that centralized cloud computing platforms present today.

In March 2022, Akamai acquired Linode Limited Liability Company ("Linode"), an established cloud computing platform. This acquisition was a significant milestone in our expansion into cloud computing. While Linode was traditionally focused on individual developers, we are leveraging the Linode cloud computing services for enterprise customers by building new enterprise-grade core computing regions and connecting them to the Akamai network, which we believe will give Akamai an advantage over its bigger cloud rivals. Akamai provides a continuum of compute solutions for developers to build and deliver distributed, low-latency applications. We empower businesses to build and deploy massively scalable applications, distribute them to reduce latency and reach underserved locations and work to optimize and secure experiences and data from the core to the digital touchpoint. Akamai’s compute solutions include a broad set of distributed cloud and edge computing services, including virtual machines, graphical processing units, cloud storage and databases, network optimization and security services

Table of Contents

and lightweight serverless functions to help businesses build, deploy and manage applications and workloads with superior performance and affordability on the world’s most distributed platform.

In 2024, we expanded Akamai's compute platform to span 41 datacenters in 36 locations. This includes upgrades to 5 existing datacenters and the introduction of 11 datacenters. The locations of these datacenters include Denver, Colorado; Houston, Texas; Querétaro, Mexico; Bogotá, Colombia; Santiago, Chile; Marseille, France; Hamburg, Germany; Johannesburg, South Africa; Auckland, New Zealand; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and Melbourne, Australia. Distributed compute regions provide access to powerful dedicated compute, storage and networking services in major metros that lack cloud computing options and availability, enabling organizations to place compute-intensive workloads as close as possible to end users. These regions act as an extension of primary infrastructure deployed in core compute regions for organizations that aim to improve application performance to attract new customers in new or target regions, and/or stabilize performance to meet user expectations. We also introduced new NVIDIA graphics processing units ("GPUs") to provide better productivity and economics for companies in the media and entertainment industry that are challenged with processing video content faster and more efficiently, and for organizations seeking to deploy AI inferencing workloads closer to end users. These GPUs are well-suited for video transcoding and live video streaming, virtual reality and augmented reality content, gaming and graphics rendering, training and inference with neural networks, data analysis and scientific computing and high-performance computing applications, such as modeling and simulation, that require fast and efficient processing of large amounts of data.

In November 2024, we launched the Akamai App Platform, a ready-to-run solution that makes it easy to deploy, manage and scale highly distributed applications. The Akamai App Platform is built on top of the cloud native Kubernetes technology Otomi, which Akamai acquired from Red Kubes Holding B.V. and its subsidiary earlier in the year. The application platform provides ready-to-run templates that address common challenges in deploying, managing and scaling Kubernetes clusters at scale. Instead of relying on multiple departments and spending months sourcing, connecting and configuring the software needed to operate Kubernetes fleets, Akamai’s solution automates the provisioning process, allowing developers to build and deploy highly distributed applications in a few clicks. This can cut deployment time from months to less than an hour and provides near-instant scaling as production workloads grow.

Delivery

Our delivery solutions consist primarily of web and mobile performance focused solutions and media delivery solutions. Our web and mobile performance solutions are architected to enable dynamic websites and applications to have rapid response times, no matter where the user is, what device or browser they are using or how they are connected to the internet. These services leverage intelligent performance optimization and real-time monitoring, origin offload and network reliability and insights that enable enterprises to identify and address performance issues. Akamai web and mobile performance capabilities also include global traffic management, site acceleration, application load balancing, large-scale load testing and real-user monitoring.

Our media delivery solutions are designed to enable enterprises to execute their digital media distribution strategies by addressing volume and global reach requirements, improving the end-user experience, boosting reliability and reducing the cost of internet-related infrastructure. Underlying these solutions is technology to address variable connection speeds and device types, facilitate access to disparate locations around the world, accelerate large file downloads, reliably deliver high-quality live content across various devices and platforms and enable comprehensive insights and real-time online video monitoring. Akamai media delivery solutions include video streaming and video player services, game and software delivery, broadcast operations, authoritative DNS, resolution and data and analytics.

Services and Support

We provide an array of service and support offerings across our core offerings. Through our service and support offerings we work closely with our customers to develop creative and tailored solutions to assist them with integrating, configuring, optimizing and managing our core offerings. Customers can rely on our professional services and security experts for customized solutions, problem resolution and 24/7 customer support. Additional features are available to enterprises that purchase our premium and managed security solutions, including a dedicated technical account team, proactive service monitoring, custom technical support handling, security traffic monitoring, technical security reviews, threat advisories and emergency support for security events.

Table of Contents

Human Capital

Our employees – our human capital – are our most valuable resources as they are fundamental to our innovation, the operation and ongoing enhancement of Akamai's solutions and global network, the fostering and maintenance of relationships with our customers and the management of our operations. The importance of our workforce to our success is underscored by the inclusion of corporate mission critical goals centered on our employees. In 2024, we continued to focus on fostering a community that enables employees to be productive, and continuing to deliver a positive experience for both employees and customers by living our values each day. Different aspects of our human capital management are overseen by our board of directors as well as its Talent, Leadership and Compensation Committee and Environmental, Social and Governance Committee.

As of December 31, 2024, we had over 10,700 employees located in more than 30 countries (with approximately 65% of those employees located outside of the U.S.) and representing over 100 nationalities, all of which we believe helps bring a global perspective to our operations. Our employees are grouped across the following roles, with the approximate percentage of the overall population noted: engineering and research and development (36%), services and support (27%), sales and marketing (17%) and administrative functions (20%).

Engagement

We continue to recognize that an engaged employee workforce is key to having the productive, ethical and high-performing workplace needed to successfully compete in today’s marketplace. We conduct quarterly surveys of our entire employee population to assess a variety of key metrics related to important topics, such as engagement, inclusion and overall job satisfaction. Results from these surveys have consistently shown a strong sense of engagement and confidence in Akamai’s future. We have been acknowledged in respected publications across the U.S., India and Poland, among other countries, as a great place to work. Continuing in 2024, all employees were able to participate in a company-wide program, developed by a behavioral research organization, that was intended to help us increase inclusive behaviors, become more open to change and accelerate our innovation. In addition, we work closely with the Akamai Foundation, to provide community service and charitable matching fund opportunities for Akamai employees, endeavors that have been shown to increase employee engagement. The Akamai Compassion Fund was created in 2020, by employees for employees, with support from the Akamai Foundation, and continues to provide a way for Akamai employees to unite and support global colleagues and their families during times of unexpected hardships following a catastrophic event, such as climate events (e.g., hurricane, mudslide, wildfire) and ongoing wars and armed conflicts around the world.

Representation

Akamai is an equal opportunity employer that values the strength that diverse perspectives bring to the workplace. We do not tolerate discrimination on the basis of gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race or ethnicity, protected veteran status, disability, or other protected group status. Akamai supports a variety of programs and practices designed to support an optimal working environment. We have eight employee resource groups ("ERGs") that offer opportunities for employees to come together for mutual support, education and development. ERGs encompass different racial and ethnic groups, persons with different physical or cognitive abilities, parents, military veterans, the LGBTQIA+ community and women and are open to all employees.

Retention

We have a demonstrated history of investing in our workforce by offering competitive salaries, wages and benefits. Our compensation and benefits philosophy is to maximize the effectiveness of pay and benefits programs to attract and retain the high caliber individuals needed to drive the success of our business, while balancing cost-effectiveness and competitive factors. Our benefits programs (which vary by country and region) include healthcare and insurance benefits, health savings and flexible spending accounts, paid time off, family leave, family care resources, flexible work schedules and locations, adoption and fertility assistance, employee assistance programs, tuition assistance and holistic wellness programs. Our wellness programs include educational offerings on healthy lifestyles, access to mental health experts, access to ergonomic advice and equipment and financial wellness support. To foster a stronger sense of ownership and align the interests of employees with shareholders, stock awards are held by the vast majority of our employees under our broad-based stock incentive programs and most employees are eligible to participate in our employee stock purchase plan. We monitor voluntary attrition in assessing our overall human capital. Attrition was slightly up in 2024 when compared to 2023.

Table of Contents

We conduct annual internal pay equity analyses (with the assistance of a nationally-recognized outside consultant), and we take action to remedy identified discrepancies when we believe it is appropriate. To date, no widespread patterns of disparity have been identified.

In addition, succession planning is an ongoing priority for our leadership. We conduct annual succession planning for senior leadership, which is overseen by our board of directors, including development plans for the next level of our senior leaders. Annual talent reviews focus on both high performers as well as those with high potential to keep a full pipeline of tomorrow’s leaders.

Development

We invest significant resources in professional development, career advancement and training for our global workforce. All employees are eligible to participate in our Akamai Elevation performance review program, which provides guidance around setting annual performance objectives, developing competencies and receiving feedback. Where appropriate, we offer leadership training workshops, 360-degree feedback and succession planning exercises to encourage and enable internal promotion and advancement. As a result of these investments and others, nearly 15% of open positions were filled with internal candidates in 2024. All employees are required to complete annual ethics and compliance and data security training. In addition to these required trainings, nearly all of our employees and contractors completed at least one training in our Akamai University program during 2024.

FlexBase

In May 2022, we launched FlexBase, which is a flexible work arrangement that allows over 95% of employees to choose to work from their home office, a Company office, an approved workspace or a combination. We believe that a focus on employee choice makes us a more attractive employer, increases productivity, enables us to recruit from a broader and more varied pool of applicants and presents additional growth and development opportunities for our employees. Since 2022, we have rolled out a number of tools and resources to support this program, such as supporting employees with guidance on maximizing our internal tools to deliver great virtual meeting experiences. In addition, we have invested in ensuring that workplace connection remains strong and developed a framework for understanding, measuring and optimizing workplace connection, named CLEAR Connections. CLEAR stands for Colleague, Leader, Employer and Role. We measure each dimension in a quarterly anonymous survey, which allows us to track and report on workplace connection around the world.

Customers

Our customers include many of the world's leading corporations, such as Adobe, Aflac, Airbnb, Asus, Autodesk, Carnival Corporation, The Coca-Cola Company, Comcast, Daiwa Institute of Research, eBay, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Fidelity Investments, Honda, Japan Airlines, Liberty Mutual, Maersk Transportation & Logistics, Marriott, NBCUniversal, Panasonic, Panera Bread, Paramount Global, Philips, Rabobank, Riot Games, Sony Interactive Entertainment, RTL, Spotify, Telefonica, Toshiba, Ubisoft, WarnerMedia and The Washington Post. We also actively sell to government agencies. As of December 31, 2024, our public-sector customers included the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

No customer accounted for 10% or more of total revenue for any of the years ended December 31, 2024, 2023 and 2022. Less than 10% of our total revenue in each of the years ended December 31, 2024, 2023 and 2022 was derived from contracts or subcontracts terminable at the election of the federal government.

Sales, Services and Marketing

We market and sell our solutions globally through our field sales and services organization and through many channel partners, including Apukay, AT&T, Avant, BV Tech, Carahsoft, CPD, Deloitte, Deutsche Telecom, Doyen, Kyndryl, Macnica, Microsoft Azure, Netpoleon, Telefonica Group and WWT. In addition to entering into agreements with resellers, we have several other types of sales and marketing focused alliances with entities such as system integrators, application service providers, technology solution distributors, referral partners and marketplaces. By aligning with these partners, we believe we are better able to market our solutions and leverage partners to add valuable services to complement our offerings and improve the customer experience. Our sales, services and marketing professionals are based in locations across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific and focus on direct and channel sales, sales operations, professional services, account management and technical consulting.

Table of Contents

To support our sales efforts and promote the Akamai brand, we conduct comprehensive marketing programs to shape perception and drive awareness and consideration of our solutions. Our integrated marketing strategies include public relations, digital programmatic advertising, paid search and SEO marketing, content marketing, social media, strategic alliances, e-mail marketing programs, events and webinars, participation at industry trade shows and ongoing training and sales enablement.

Competition

The market for our solutions is intensely competitive and characterized by rapidly changing technology, evolving industry standards and frequent new product and service innovations. We expect competition for our offerings to increase both from existing competitors and new market entrants. We compete primarily on the basis of:

• the performance and reliability of our solutions;

• massive distribution and availability of our network;

• return on investment in terms of cost savings and new revenue opportunities for our customers;

• reduced infrastructure complexity;

• sophistication and functionality of our offerings;

• our long-term product roadmaps and ability to quickly innovate;

• scalability;

• security;

• ease of implementation and use of service;

• first-party global services and support across products;

• customer support; and

• price.

We compete with companies offering products and services that provide internet content delivery and hosting services, security and cloud computing solutions, technologies used by carriers to improve the efficiency of their systems, streaming content delivery services and equipment-based solutions for internet performance problems, such as load balancers and server switches. Other companies offer online distribution of digital media assets through advertising-based billing or revenue-sharing models that may represent an alternative method for charging for the delivery of content and applications over the internet. In addition, existing and potential customers may decide to purchase or develop their own hardware, software or other technology solutions rather than rely on a third-party provider like us. Our security solutions compete with those offered by both hardware and software providers. While our compute solutions have historically competed with alternative cloud computing platforms focused on individual developers, we anticipate that going forward our compute solutions will increasingly compete with the large so-called “hyper-scaler” cloud computing providers.

We believe that we compete favorably with other companies in our industry through our global scale, reliability and expertise, which we believe provides the most effective means of meeting the needs of enterprise customers and is unique to us. In our view, we also benefit from the high quality of our offerings, our customer service and the information we can provide to our customers about their online operations and value.

Government Regulation

As a global technology company, Akamai is subject to complex foreign and U.S. laws and regulations in areas such as data privacy and localization, cybersecurity, liability for content delivered over our network, various internet regulations, bribery, sanctions, export controls, competition, tax and foreign exchange controls.

Privacy laws, such as the European Union General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, impact how we use data generated from our network as well as our ability to reach current and prospective customers, understand how our solutions are being used, transfer data about our employees and respond to customer requests allowed under the applicable laws. Other laws and regulations that apply to the internet related to, among other things, content liability, security and disclosure requirements, critical infrastructure designations, internet resiliency, law enforcement access to information, net neutrality, so-called "fair share" or internet content taxes, data localization requirements, industry regulations applicable to key suppliers to some of our customers and restrictions on social media or other content can have an impact on our business. For instance, regulations have been enacted or proposed in a number of countries that limit the delivery of certain types of content into those countries. As an example, restrictions were adopted in India in 2020 prohibiting access to identified Chinese-owned applications. Enactment and expansion of such laws and regulations in other jurisdictions would negatively impact our revenues or cause us to incur costs to redesign our systems to ensure compliance. In addition, in April 2024, the U.S. government passed legislation that prohibited the provision of certain types of services to a Chinese application if the

Table of Contents

application was not sold to a neutral third party by January 19, 2025. The Chinese application was not sold to a neutral third party by the January 19th deadline, but President Trump subsequently signed an executive order instructing the U.S. Attorney General to not take any action to enforce the passed legislation for a period of 75 days from January 20, 2025. The Attorney General has since determined that our provision of services to this customer has not violated the law and that we can continue providing services as contemplated by the Executive Order without violating the law and without incurring any legal liability. It is difficult to predict whether the passed legislation will ultimately be enforced and whether any future judicial challenges brought against the executive order will be successful. Even though President Trump has extended the enforcement deadline for a ban on the Chinese application, there is no assurance that we will not be exposed to liability and we may be exposed to significant fines, litigation, indemnification claims, negative publicity, reputational harm, diversion of management attention, interruptions in our operations, financial loss and other similar harms by continuing to provide services to the Chinese application.

We are subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and similar anti-bribery laws, which generally prohibit companies and their intermediaries from offering payments or inducements to foreign government officials for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business. To the extent we export technical services, data, products or other technology outside of the U.S., we are subject to U.S. and international laws and regulations governing international trade and exports, including, but not limited to, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, the Export Administration Regulations and sanctions against embargoed countries and other designated entities and individuals.

Many of these laws and regulations are evolving and could be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent from country to country and inconsistent with our current policies and practices and in ways that could harm our business. For example, while we are generally not subject to regulations applicable to telecommunications companies, new or different interpretations of laws or regulations could subject us to regulatory supervision. In general, the nature and breadth of laws and regulations governing the internet may increase in the future; accordingly, we are unable to assess the possible effect of compliance with future requirements or whether our compliance with such regulations will materially impact our business, results of operations or financial condition.

For further discussion of how government regulations may affect our business, see the related discussion below in Item 1A. Risk Factors – Financial and Operational Risks – We face risks associated with global operations that could harm our business; – Legal and Regulatory Risks – Evolving privacy regulations could negatively impact our profitability and business operations; and – Legal and Regulatory Risks – Other regulatory developments could negatively impact our business.

Intellectual Property

Our success and ability to compete are dependent on developing and maintaining the proprietary aspects of our technology and operating without infringing on the proprietary rights of others. We rely on a combination of patent, trademark, trade secret and copyright laws and contractual restrictions to protect the proprietary aspects of our technology. As of December 31, 2024, we owned, or had exclusive rights to, over 560 U.S. patents covering our technology as well as patents issued by other countries. Our U.S.-issued patents have terms extendable to various dates between 2025 and 2043. We do not believe that the expiration of any particular patent in the near future would be materially detrimental to our business. We seek to limit disclosure of our intellectual property by requiring employees and consultants with access to our proprietary information to execute confidentiality agreements with us and by restricting access to our source code.

Additional Information

Our internet website address is www.akamai.com. We make available, free of charge, on or through our internet website, our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and amendments thereto that we have filed or furnished with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "Commission") as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file them with the Commission. We also use our https://www.ir.akamai.com website as a means of disclosing material non-public information and for complying with our disclosure obligations under Regulation FD. We are not, however, including the information contained on our website, or information that may be accessed through links on our website, as part of, or incorporating such information by reference into, this annual report on Form 10-K.

Table of Contents