Blockchain, artificial intelligence and knowledge graphs: What does it mean for the business?

In this paper, we look at a number of new technologies that are making their way through the well-known ‘hype cycle’, along with a cold hard look at the hype cycle itself. The items explored include blockchain and artificial intelligence, with a detailed look at various manifestations of these. We learn to think of each new thing not in terms of the claims or even the vocabulary of its proponents, but through the lens of something called ‘ontology’. We explain what ontology is in the simplest sense of the word, this being a formal representation of real things. We consider how to use this as a governance framework with the organisation, including its application to business strategy. In a curious twist, we find that there is also a technology related to ontology that is making its own way up the hype curve, with promising applications for finding out things that are hidden in data. Of course, this is also called ‘ontology’. Finally, we pull this together to set out some points of departure for readers to think about how to manage meaning across the organisation and how to thereby understand and manage these and other new technologies as they come along.