Thinner Agents on a Smarter Substrate: The Ontology-based Semantic Layer — Emil Eifrem, Neo4j
Enterprise AI agents waste effort rediscovering data sources; a shared ontology-based semantic layer fixes this.
“every single time a team has to build an agent, they have to figure out from scratch where the data that they require for that agent to operate, where it sits”
Neo4j's Emil Eifrem argues that enterprise agent teams are repeatedly solving the same data-discovery problem from scratch across hundreds of databases, data warehouses, and object stores. He proposes an ontology-based semantic layer as a shared substrate so agents can locate, trust, and access the right data without redundant wiring. The talk is a blueprint pitch rather than a product launch, but the framing of 'thinner agents on a smarter substrate' captures a real architectural trend in enterprise AI.