Why Ontology Is Becoming Foundational
We hope that everyone had a great holiday season. To kick off the new year we are going to start with a topic that is on the minds of every data and AI leader for 2026: Ontology.
We know that at least some of you may be thinking "Oh great. Another thing I've been doing for years becomes the new buzz word." We hear you. But, given the historically available tools, you're probably stuck implementing a weak or shallow ontology. We can help you expand what you're already doing in a way that acknowledges the many levels of Ontology and takes advantage of the burgeoning community of open ontology standards.
Towards a Deeper Ontology
Today, you're likely practicing ontology with a logical but somewhat rigid schema. This may take the form of clearly named tables; referential column headings; and key-values that provide logical table linkages. You can ask questions of your ontology like "which employee worked on project 'X'?" but it's likely difficult to answer more probing questions.
At SeerAI, we think of ontologies as a means to foster deep interaction with your data. By connecting to real data; encoding predicate connections between datasets; and allowing entities and objects to persist across applications we allow you to ask the next level of questions. “Which employee worked on project ‘X’?” becomes, “What data and people to do I need to solve something like project ‘X’ but in a different location?”
A Place for Ontologies
If the above describes you well, there is already value in utilizing SeerAI’s platform. However, you may already be practicing ontology at a deeper level with assignments entities, objects, observables, and the connections between each. If this is the case, you’re already ahead of the game! But now the question becomes “where do I apply my ontology?”
At SeerAI, we give you the space to apply both open standard and proprietary ontologies to real data. You can see your ontologies manifest in a knowledge graph; amend it without needing to worry about system-of-record data; or take it with you as an RDF model. And if you don’t yet have an ontology, our platform is a great place to begin to construct one.
Next Steps
Whether you’re new to ontologies or a well-worn veteran, we do think that 2026 will see more demand placed on them and their curators; in particular, enterprise AI implementations will stumble and stall if an organization’s data is not logically and deeply encoded within an ontological structure.
If this strikes a chord with you, please feel free to reach out for a demo or discussion.