February 13, 2025
But AI’s power isn’t limited to your internal data, and that’s a massive advantage because no enterprise exists in a vacuum. There will always be external forces that affect the workings of your business, and one of AI’s biggest superpowers is combining internal and external data analysis and providing instantaneous strategic insights that would have been practically impossible to derive otherwise. Yes, BI tools can integrate with third-party data, but the technical lift is heavy and the analysis must all be done manually. That’s why the most modern enterprises have started using AI as a decision-making engine.
Imagine you run a restaurant and want to understand what makes customers spend more per visit. An analysis of your internal transactional data will tell you the obvious: people who order alcohol, appetizers, and desserts tend to have higher check sizes.
But what actually makes people more likely to order alcohol, appetizers, and desserts? That’s where AI’s real power emerges — when it combines these insights with external data to uncover the full story. Let’s say you want to determine if the weather has any effect. All you need to do is connect your AI model to public weather station data, and the model can look for any noteworthy relationships between it and your transactions. Maybe comfort food appetizer sales skyrocket when it’s cold outside, or maybe patrons who sit on the patio order multiple courses when it’s warm and sunny because they want to soak up the nice weather for as long as possible.
But since your restaurant can’t control the weather, let’s look for other external factors that we can control. For example, AI may tell you that check sizes increase when there’s a big sporting event on TV. As a result, you may decide to offer gameday food and drink specials to encourage more people to visit. Or you may decide to install more TVs to increase your odds of bigger checks throughout the entire building.
Let’s say you have a high-end boutique and want to analyze the competition. AI can compare your internal purchase order data to external website data to determine who sells similar products. Want to drill down deeper? Tell your AI model to cross-reference each business’s address with census data to determine which competitors target the same demographic profile. As an added benefit, there’s a good chance AI will uncover competitors that you never would have thought of, like a nearby spa that sells the same skincare products you do.
With AI, you’re not just collecting data — you’re activating it to make faster, smarter business decisions. However, all AI tools are not created equal. Some offer linear reasoning, which is great for straightforward tasks but can’t glean the types of insights we’ve discussed. For example, a linear AI tool that automates password resets would operate like this:
To get deeper, more strategic insights, you need a knowledge graph to act as the “brain.” Instead of being limited to linear reasoning, a knowledge graph is a flexible network of internal and external information that can find hidden connections, uncover new relationships, and fuel smarter results.
Why do we call it the “brain”? Because it acts similarly to the way your brain processes and retrieves information. For example, the scent of cinnamon may remind you of baking with your grandmother as a child. When you smell cinnamon, your brain connects various dots and retrieves the memory of baking in your grandmother’s kitchen. A knowledge graph works the same way:
Because a knowledge graph works this way, it’s not just capable of providing stronger outputs — it can also tell you exactly how it arrived at them.
An AI-powered decision engine can scale without limits. No matter how many millions or billions of data points you collect, a knowledge graph can grow with you — without the need for a team of data scientists. Plus, it can handle unlimited queries in real-time.
Enterprise data is a goldmine, assuming you have the AI infrastructure to extract its full value. Discover how AI can chart a path forward for your business by downloading our guide, From raw to relevant: How AI turns enterprise data into profitable action.
