What a year to be connecting the dots of data!

A couple weeks ago, I returned from a productive last visit to our HQ in Bulgaria, meeting with the Marketing team and our investors. I spent much of the flight back reflecting on a tumultuous 2023 in the world of data management. From starting off the year wondering what data topics we should cover, scrambling to have a point of view on knowledge graphs and AI, to ending the year wondering if Generative AI could help me write this article!  (No LLMs were harmed in the creation of this material, and I am not hallucinating). From fears of a global recession, to concerns of more localized recessions that never fully materialized, conflicts and upheavals – it’s been a bit of a disconnected year.

All frivolity aside, as I look back over the last many months, we’ve seen the explosion of ChatGPT and related Generative AI models, increased awareness of the importance of a data strategy to deliver a solid, shared data foundation, and vendors rushing to deliver integration for various flavors of AI. Our own development connected Gen AI to our internal data, enabling Natural Language access to our marketing information.  AI and ‘doing something with it’ has been in boardroom discussions, on CEO/CDAO’s minds and showing up in pretty much any data related publication. Semantics is finally getting its well deserved attention, as companies realize that bringing all their data together requires not just the right architecture, but a way to have a shared understanding in order to drive value from those assets.

 This year, we expanded our Sales and Marketing teams in North America, making a significant impact and generating substantial demand.  We integrated with our teams in Bulgaria to collaborate more effectively, share knowledge and deliver results. Our product team has delivered significant enhancements to our product, integration with LLMs, AWS and Azure availability, and of course AI and ChatGPT enablement. We saw an 80% growth in GraphDB revenue, and renewals and upgrades exceeded plans.  Sales helped drive excellent client success stories, from knowledge and content management, enabling delivery of life saving medicines, helping one company save over 30% of their data management costs, supporting a major automobile manufacturer’s upcoming electric line, and much more.  The Marketing team has built a very respectable pipeline, provided powerful content and thought leadership, expanded Ontotext awareness, garnered analyst attention and (I hope) tamed the HubSpot beast. We’ve grown our partner ecosystem to include some of the best in the market, and are excited about the synergies we are creating, and the interest from our customers.

So what stood out to me this year? Nothing is impossible without a great team – or a great group of teams. Ontotext, working as a team, won its largest enterprise contract ever - one of many we see likely to happen!   As a team, we doubled the pipeline from last year, scaled sales and partner resources and in the face of global economic concerns, still brought home key wins.  We responded successfully to shifting market conditions to deliver multiple product releases improving semantics usage, better visualizing and connecting data, and incorporating deeper value from AI. The concept of using knowledge graphs to deal with the ‘Bad Data Tax’ was introduced, as organizations commonly waste up to 30% of their IT budgets because of multiple, proprietary systems. To address these challenges, we are introducing a Graph Center of Excellence, aimed at explaining and helping guide enterprises through the journey of graph technology alignment and implementation.

 2023 demonstrated the power of teamwork, innovation, and our collective dedication to turning possibilities into reality. As we look ahead, Ontotext is not just a company; we are a force committed to helping organizations unravel and access the value within their complex data landscapes. Our knowledge graph and text analytics solutions serve to connect the dots of data, creating a foundational architecture for Generative AI, advanced analytics, fraud detection, knowledge management and much more.   With a strong partner ecosystem, solid pipeline and experienced sales team, supported by a clear vision, Ontotext is poised to make 2024 a banner year, leading the charge in the evolving world of semantic knowledge graphs.    

 Doug Kimball

Chief Marketing Officer - Ontotext