This week we feature articles from Shayne Longpre, and Hugo Bowne-Anderson & Alan Nichol.

Additional reading comes from Deborah Turness, Cory Doctorow, Kurt Cagle, and Michael Andrews.

News comes from Perplexity, Sprinklr & Bluesky, Databricks & SAP, accessiBe, and Transperfect.

Our next issue arrives March 5.

All previous issues are available at https://gilbane.com/gilbane-advisor-index

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Opinion / Analysis

AI crawler wars threaten to make the web more closed

There’s an accelerating cat-and-mouse game between web publishers and AI crawlers, and we all stand to lose.

Shayne Longpre explains how this is likely to play out. He is not optimistic, but is hopeful. I’m sure he would love to hear about happier alternatives. You can reach him the Data Provenance Initiative. (5 min)

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/11/1111518/ai-crawler-wars-closed-web

Beyond prompt-and-pray

Building reliable LLM-powered software in an agentic world

Companies may be excited about the potential of AI agents, but enterprise workflows are complex and largely mission-critical, so most organizations are sensibly leery. Hugo Bowne-Anderson & Alan Nichol propose a “Structured automation … development approach that separates conversational AI’s natural language understanding from deterministic workflow execution”. Good advice. (8 min)

https://www.oreilly.com/radar/beyond-prompt-and-pray

More Reading

• BBC research shows issues with over half the answers from Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistants via BBC
• You should be using an RSS reader. Totally! via Cory Doctorow
• Attention and relevance are different via Story Needle
• MarkLogic gets a serious upgrade via The Cagle Report

All Gilbane Advisor issues

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Content technology news

Introducing Perplexity Deep Research

Deep Research performs dozens of searches, reads hundreds of sources, and reasons through the material to autonomously deliver a comprehensive report.
www.perplexity.ai

Sprinklr announces new integration with Bluesky

Customers can use the Sprinklr platform to engage audiences on Bluesky, deliver consistent content, track metrics, and gather insights to inform brand strategies.
https://www.sprinklr.com

Databricks announces launch of SAP Databricks

The partnership with SAP natively integrates the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform within the newly launched SAP Business Data Cloud.
https://www.databricks.com/blog/introducing-sap-databricks

accessiBe updates accessFlow for native accessibility in web projects

Developers can achieve lasting accessibility improvements at a native level across web projects in alignment with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
https://accessibe.com

Transperfect acquires Apostroph Group

Apostroph expands TransPerfect’s footprint in the region, which includes client service, production, and studio facilities in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
https://www.transperfect.com

All content technology news

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The Gilbane Advisor is authored by Frank Gilbane and is ad-free, cost-free, and curated for content, computing, web, data, and digital experience technology and information professionals. We publish recommended articles and content technology news most Wednesdays. We do not sell or share personal data.

Subscribe | View online | Editorial policy | Privacy policy | Contact

This week we feature articles from Kurt Cagle, and Dharmesh Shah.

Additional reading comes from Sarah Gilbert, John Timmer, Mrinank Sharma, et al, and Ben Hylak, Shawn Wang, & Alessio Fanelli.

News comes from Databricks, Docugami, Adobe, and Brightcove.

Next issue arrives February 19.

All previous issues are available at https://gilbane.com/gilbane-advisor-index

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Opinion / Analysis

When do you need a knowledge graph?

“Building a knowledge graph can be a significant undertaking, and consequently, it is worth taking the time to figure out if you need to make that effort in establishing one. There are a few questions you can ask when assessing this effort.” Kurt Cagle’s post will help decision-making teams get started. (5 min)

https://ontologist.substack.com/p/when-do-you-need-a-knowledge-graph

What OpenAI Operator means for AI Agents

Dharmesh Shah, who hosts a “marketplace and professional network for AI agents” (currently 784), is unsurprisingly excited about the recent announcements of OpenAI’s Operator, and Perplexity’s Assistant. He explains what “these new AI agents can (and can’t) do, why this matters, and what developers need to know about our new AI-first internet”. (5 min)

https://simple.ai/p/what-openai-operator-means-for-ai-agents

More Reading

• It’s remarkably easy to inject new medical misinformation into LLMs via Ars Technica
• Three reasons Meta will struggle with community fact-checking via MIT Technology Review
• Constitutional Classifiers: Defending against universal jailbreaks. Break it for reward! via Anthropic
• o1 isn’t a chat model (and that’s the point) via Latent Space

All Gilbane Advisor issues

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Content technology news

Databricks acquires BladeBridge

BladeBridge to help enterprises migrate to Databricks’ lakehouse, assess scope of conversion, configurable code transpiling, and LLM-conversion.
https://www.databricks.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/databricks-acquires-bladebridge-technology-and-talent

Docugami launches Canadian subsidiary

Docugami Canada will accelerate collaboration to advance the science of document Artificial Intelligence and expand customer engagement in Canada.
https://www.docugami.com

Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant adds GenAI features focused on contracts

The new features help customers grasp complex terms and spot differences between multiple agreements to understand and verify documents more easily.

https://news.adobe.com/news/2025/02/acrobat-ai-assistant-contracts

Brightcove launches AI Content Suite

The Brightcove AI Content Suite includes three AI-powered capabilities: content creation, metadata optimization, and language translation.
https://www.brightcove.com/company/press/brightcove-launches-ai-content-suite-ga/

All content technology news

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The Gilbane Advisor is authored by Frank Gilbane and is ad-free, cost-free, and curated for content, computing, web, data, and digital experience technology and information professionals. We publish recommended articles and content technology news most Wednesdays. We do not sell or share personal data.

Subscribe | View online | Editorial policy | Privacy policy | Contact

This week we feature articles from Ethan Mollick, and Alberto Romero.

Additional reading comes from Daniel Tunkelang, Cassie Kozyrkov, Mike Masnick, and Om Malik.

News comes from Progress Software, Perplexity, TransPerfect, and TileDB.

Next issue arrives February 12.

All previous issues are available at https://gilbane.com/gilbane-advisor-index

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Opinion / Analysis

Which AI to use now: An updated opinionated guide

Picking your general-purpose AI

Ethan Mollick’s article is unbiased, non-technical, recent (well, 2 days old), includes 7 models, a feature table, and examples. This is a valuable resource for anyone who isn’t a full-time AI expert or practitioner, or doesn’t have the time or interest to try out all the models on their own.  (10 min)

https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/which-ai-to-use-now-an-updated-opinionated

7 implications of DeepSeek’s victory over American AI companies

DeepSeek burst into the AI mainstream a week ago on Monday, after DeepSeek R1 was released. Excitement and panic ensued as analysts and investors digested the potential implications. Alberto Romero published a good technical analysis, and followed up yesterday with a look at some larger market and political issues — both articles are worth reading. This free version of his post expands on 5 of the 7 implications he mentions. (14 min)

https://www.thealgorithmicbridge.com/p/7-implications-of-deepseeks-victory

More Reading

• Unbiased demo of Operator (Agent from OpenAI) 5 use cases via Cassie Kozyrkov
• Ground Truth: A useful fiction via Daniel Tunkelang
• Will A.I. eat the Browser? via Crazy Stupid Tech
• Empowering users, not overlords: Overcoming digital helplessness via Techdirt

All Gilbane Advisor issues

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Content technology news

Progress launches Progress Data Cloud Platform

The new Progress Data Cloud platform enables managed hosting of feature-complete instances of Progress Semaphore and Progress MarkLogic.
https://www.progress.com/data-cloud

Perplexity introduces Sonar Pro API

With Perplexity’s features combined with Sonar and Sonar Pro API you can build GenAI search capabilities with real-time, web-wide research.
https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/getting-started

TransPerfect acquires H2A

Enables TransPerfect to enhance its global business services and broaden support for clients with diverse language needs.
https://www.transperfect.com/about/press/transperfect-expands-global-contact-center-and-bpo-capabilities-acquisition-h2a

TileDB now available in AWS Marketplace

Research, business and data teams can organize, structure, collaborate and analyze structured and unstructured data in one place.
https://tiledb.com

All content technology news

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The Gilbane Advisor is authored by Frank Gilbane and is ad-free, cost-free, and curated for content, computing, web, data, and digital experience technology and information professionals. We publish recommended articles and content technology news most Wednesdays. We do not sell or share personal data.

Subscribe | View online | Editorial policy | Privacy policy | Contact

This week we feature articles from Juan Sequeda, Dean Allemang & Bryon Jacob, and Steve Jones.

Additional reading comes from Eli Pariser & Deepti Doshi, Tim Bray, Ethan Mollick, and Sara A. Metwalli.

News comes from Contextual AI, Contentstack & Lytics, dbt Labs & SDF Labs, and Foxit.

Next issue arrives January 29.

All previous issues are available at https://gilbane.com/gilbane-advisor-index

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Opinion / Analysis

Knowledge Graphs as a source of trust for LLM-powered enterprise question answering

This paper by Juan Sequeda, Dean Allemang & Bryon Jacob, is the result of two years of research and experimentation primarily focused on the relative contributions of LLMs and knowledge graphs to modern knowledge engineering practices. A really useful and forward-looking contribution. Includes link to last week’s updated PDF. (22 min)

“Our definition of trust is based on three main aspects: (1) LLMs hallucinate, therefore we need to ensure accuracy of responses, (2) LLMs have a black box nature, therefore we need to provide an explanation of where answers come from and (3) there is a risk of incorrect information being used, thus we need to ensure governance.”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570826824000441

When did random code execution become a feature?

The largest security hole, presented as a bonus

Steve Jones on AI Agents… “There are three core times you should allow unverified code to be executed within the enterprise:

• When you want to get fired
• When you’ve decided that working for the company isn’t for you
• When you’d really like to be personally liable for significant damages” (4 min)

https://blog.metamirror.io/when-did-random-code-execution-become-a-feature-e2b78a45ad6f

More Reading

• We need to protect the protocol that runs Bluesky via MIT Technology Review  also see…
• Protocol Churn – ActivityPub and AT Protocol via ongoing
• Prophecies of the flood – What to make of the statements of the AI labs? via One Useful Thing
• Good intro and update for a broad audience… The state of quantum computing: Where are we today? And what we need to overcome. via Towards Data Science

All Gilbane Advisor issues

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Content technology news

Contextual AI launches platform for building specialized RAG agents

Specialized RAG agents orchestrate retrieval and generation based on conversational context for complex knowledge tasks with structured and unstructured data.
https://contextual.ai/blog/contextual-ai-platform-generally-available/

dbt Labs acquires SDF Labs

dbt Labs will integrate SDF’s multi-dialect, dbt-native SQL comprehension capabilities into dbt to improve performance and developer experience.
https://www.getdbt.com/blog/dbt-labs-announces-sdf-labs-acquisition

Foxit launches standalone web-based AI platform

Includes AI chat assistance, document and image analysis, summarization, multilingual translation, and text enhancement for modern document management.
https://www.foxit.com

Contentstack acquires Lytics

The composable DXP adds first-party data, audience insights, content analytics and profile management to elevate brand digital experiences.
https://www.contentstack.com ■ https://www.lytics.com

All content technology news

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The Gilbane Advisor is authored by Frank Gilbane and is ad-free, cost-free, and curated for content, computing, web, data, and digital experience technology and information professionals. We publish recommended articles and content technology news most Wednesdays. We do not sell or share personal data.

Subscribe | View online | Editorial policy | Privacy policy | Contact

This week we feature articles from Melanie Mitchell, and Maria Mouschoutzi.

Additional reading comes from Chia Jeng Yang, Nilay Patel & Mustafa Suleyman, Kate Knibbs, and Sayash Kapoor & Arvind Narayanan, and Louie Peters.

News comes from Graphlit, RWS, Brightcove, and Grammarly & Coda.

Next issue arrives January 22.

All previous issues are available at https://gilbane.com/gilbane-advisor-index

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Opinion / Analysis

OpenAI’s o3 model aces the “Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus” — but what does it mean?

The most interesting AI news in December was OpenAI’s announcement of remarkable benchmark results with their o3 model. Melanie Mitchell’s article on o3’s significance is the best and most balanced I have read. (13 min)

https://aiguide.substack.com/p/did-openai-just-solve-abstract-reasoning

Water cooler small talk: Simpson’s Paradox

Is your data tricking you? What can you do about it?

Sophisticated data analysis is a woefully under-represented skill in organizations. We can’t all be statisticians, but decision-makers need to be more aware of the potential to be misled by even by well intentioned and proficient data collection results.

Maria Mouschoutzi provides an excellent example of “how aggregated data can hide or misrepresent subgroup-level patterns”. You don’t need any statistics knowledge, or code (there is a small amount) to understand the article and how to deal with this particular pitfall. (9 min)

https://towardsdatascience.com/water-cooler-small-talk-simpsons-paradox-caf98151db0e

More Reading

• Surprise… We looked at 78 election deepfakes. Political misinformation is not an AI Problem via AI Snake Oil
• Transcript of a really interesting discussion… Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman says conversational AI is the next web browser via The Verge
• Great resource… Harvard is releasing a massive free AI training dataset funded by OpenAI and Microsoft via Wired
• Technical – good example… Case Study: Turning congressional hearing transcripts into knowledge graphs via WhyHow.AI
• Dramatic difference… DeepSeek v3–10x+ improvement in both training and inference cost for frontier LLMs via Towards AI

All Gilbane Advisor issues

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Content technology news

Graphlit Agent Tools Library streamlines unstructured data ingestion and AI agent workflows

The toolkit builds on Graphlit’s RAG-as-a-Service platform, enabling developers to rapidly build AI agents that streamline data handling and LLM-driven workflows.
https://www.graphlit.com

Brightcove partners with Acquia

The partnership with Acquia provides customers with integrated DAM and CMS capabilities to help customers build more cohesive, easy-to-deploy martech stacks.
https://www.brightcove.com/en/company/press/brightcove-partners-with-acquia-to-benefit-customers

RWS releases Tridion Sites 10.1

Web content management platform enables more granular control and management of global content, multilingual marketing campaigns, and digital experiences.
https://www.rws.com/about/news/2024/rws-launches-latest-version-tridion-sites

Grammarly to acquire Coda

Acquisition extends Grammarly beyond an AI assistant to become an AI productivity platform for Apps and Agents.

https://coda.io/blog/about-coda/grammarly-acquires-coda ■ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/company/grammarly-acquires-coda

All content technology news

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The Gilbane Advisor is authored by Frank Gilbane and is ad-free, cost-free, and curated for content, computing, web, data, and digital experience technology and information professionals. We publish recommended articles and content technology news most Wednesdays. We do not sell or share personal data.

Subscribe | View online | Editorial policy | Privacy policy | Contact

This week we feature articles from Rita Kind-Envy, jreyesr, and Dharmesh Thakker, Danel Dayan, Jason Mendel, Sudhee Chilappagari, Patrick Hsu & Payal Modi.

Additional reading comes from Giuseppe Futia, Joel Cunningham, Manuj Dhariwa & Shruti Dhariwal, and Aeree Cho, Grace C. Kim, Alexander Karpekov, Alec Helbling, Jay Wang, Seongmin Lee, Benjamin Hoover, & Polo Chau.

News comes from Box, Snowflake, Brightcove, and Elastic.

It’s hard to believe it’s time for our annual holiday break, especially given the sunny and 60ish weather here in Boston. See you in early January.

All previous issues are available at https://gilbane.com/gilbane-advisor-index

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Opinion / Analysis

Inside the coming AI market “supercycle” and how cloud startups can benefit

The Battery Ventures 2024 State of OpenCloud Report

Dharmesh Thakker, Danel Dayan, Jason Mendel, Sudhee Chilappagari, Patrick Hsu, and Payal Modi provide an optimistic case for investing in AI technology. There is a short summary, followed by lots of useful charts to peruse. (3 min summary)

https://www.battery.com/blog/opencloud-2024

Before Times New Roman, there was something better

What was the 14th century font that foreshadowed Times New Roman? Why are they both so readable? You do care about readability don’t you? Well, even if you don’t, Rita Kind-Envy’s short piece is a fun read, and if nothing else “…you can casually drop what Humanistic minuscule is on your colleagues. Random facts are cool…” (7 min)

https://uxdesign.cc/before-times-new-roman-there-was-something-better-e227f34796c4

Exploring Typst, a new typesetting system similar to LaTeX

I have to admit to a certain nostalgia for markup languages and formatting software given my time working on and with both. As “jreyesr” says, Typst looks like an interesting project, and his post was well worth the time to read. (85 min)

https://blog.jreyesr.com/posts/typst

More Reading

• Little Language Models: Empowering children to be future AI modelers via MIT Media Lab
• This Chrome extension uploads all your old tweets to Bluesky via Lifehacker
• Transformer Explainer: LLM transformer model visually explainedvia Georgia Institute of Technology
• Ontology reasoning in knowledge graphs via Towards Data Science

All Gilbane Advisor issues

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Content technology news

Box announces Box AI Studio

Box AI Studio delivers the ability to choose AI models and enables the creation and deployment of Box AI agents tailored to unique needs.
https://blog.box.com/intelligent-content-management-innovations-boxworks-2024

Snowflake announces availability of Unistore with Hybrid Tables

Unistore with Hybrid Tables brings transactional and analytical data together in a single unified platform, simplifying data architectures.
https://www.snowflake.com/en/blog/unistore-general-availability

Brightcove launches Marketing Studio for sales

The solution empowers global sales teams to create personalized videos while centralized teams manage brand quality and optimize content.
https://www.brightcove.com/en/company/press/brightcove-launches-marketing-studio-for-sales

Elastic announces AI ecosystem to accelerate GenAI application development

Elasticsearch vector database integrations with curated AI technology provides developers resources to expedite the deployment of RAG applications.
https://ir.elastic.co/news/news-details/2024/Elastic-Announces-AI-Ecosystem-to-Accelerate-GenAI-Application-Development/default.aspx

All content technology news

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The Gilbane Advisor is authored by Frank Gilbane and is ad-free, cost-free, and curated for content, computing, web, data, and digital experience technology and information professionals. We publish recommended articles and content technology news most Wednesdays. We do not sell or share personal data.

Subscribe | View online | Editorial policy | Privacy policy | Contact

This week we feature articles from Rafe Brena, and Benjamin Brooks. 

Additional reading comes from Jenna Ahart, Astasia Myers, Van Chien Nguyen et al, and Joan Westenberg.

News comes from OpenAI, Coveo & Shopify, DataStax, and Salesforce.

Our next issue will arrive November 20.

All previous issues are available at https://gilbane.com/gilbane-advisor-index

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Opinion / Analysis

Agents are coming back from the dead

Rafe Brena has a delightful piece on the history of agents. It is fun, non-technical, and should be of interest to “anybody thinking about developing “agents” or just considering using them.” Be sure to checkout the link to Apple’s 1987 five-minute video of a “Knowledge Navigator”. (8 min)

https://pub.towardsai.net/agents-are-coming-back-from-the-dead-50c929ab8387

AI search could break the web

Developers should act before governments fall back on blunt tools.

Navigating the complex intersection of web ecosystem health, copyright and legal issues, AI / machine learning ethical issues, and current and potential regulations, is daunting. Even moreso given diverse type of expertise required for well-informed decision making. Benjamin Brooks provides some helpful clarity. (6 min)

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/10/31/1106504/ai-search-could-break-the-web

More Reading

• A survey of small language models A useful resource for researchers and practitioners. via Van Chien Nguyen et al
• An easier-to-use technique for storing data in DNA is inspired by our cells via MIT Technology Review
• The three components of the unstructured data stack and the author/investor wants to hear from relevant startups. via Memory Leak
• Is podcasting’s golden age already over? via Westenberg.

All Gilbane Advisor issues

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Content technology news

OpenAI introduces ChatGPT search

ChatGPT will choose to search the web based on what you ask, or you can manually choose to search by clicking the web search icon or links to sources.
https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-search

Coveo partners with Shopify

The partnership brings AI search, generative, product discovery and dynamic session optimization commerce experiences to enterprise customers.
https://www.coveo.com/en/integrations/shopify-search

DataStax expands Astra DB extension for GitHub Copilot

Manage and interact with Astra DB and create Langflow GenAI applications through a more intuitive natural language interface.
https://www.datastax.com/blog/astra-db-extension-github-copilot-updates

Salesforce launches Agentforce

Agentforce delivers autonomous AI agents that can connect to enterprise data and take action across sales, service, marketing, and commerce.
https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2024/10/29/agentforce-general-availability-announcement/

All content technology news

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The Gilbane Advisor is authored by Frank Gilbane and is ad-free, cost-free, and curated for content, computing, web, data, and digital experience technology and information professionals. We publish recommended articles and content technology news most Wednesdays. We do not sell or share personal data.

Subscribe | View online | Editorial policy | Privacy policy | Contact

This week we feature articles from Melanie Mitchell, and David Weinberger. 

Additional reading comes from Chris Messina, David Haber, Chance Miller, and Michael Parekh.

News comes from Semantic Web Company & Ontotext, Perplexity, Acquia, and Sitecore.

Our next issue will arrive November 6.

All previous issues are available at https://gilbane.com/gilbane-advisor-index

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Opinion / Analysis

The LLM reasoning debate heats up

Three recent papers examine the robustness of reasoning and problem-solving in large language models

Melanie Mitchell describes each papers’ methodology, and findings, and concludes that “… there’s no consensus about the conclusion!” This may not be a surprise, but her article is a very readable and useful update. (11 min)

https://aiguide.substack.com/p/the-llm-reasoning-debate-heats-up

AI doesn’t think like us

David Weinberger wears his philosophy hat to make his case in this journal essay. The result is an especially thoughtful and balanced contribution to discussions about “knowledge” in a world of humans and machine learning. Prepare to think. (15 min)

https://dweinberger.medium.com/ai-doesnt-think-like-us-81a6fdc33e2a

More Reading

• The messy inbox problem: wedge strategies in AI apps… for small business and front office via a16z
• Prove it yourself… Apple shares Private Cloud Compute resources for researchers via 9to5Mac
• The road to Arc 2.0 – Will the Chrome killer become the user agent of the LLM era? via Chris Messina
• What’s easier… Catching rockets vs unsupervised self driving cars & robots via Michael Parek

All Gilbane Advisor issues

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Content technology news

Semantic Web Company and Ontotext merge to create Graphwise

The knowledge graph management platform includes complete multi-modal data support – unstructured, semi-structured and structured data.
https://graphwise.ai

Perplexity introduces Internal Knowledge Search and Spaces

 With Perplexity Pro and Enterprise Pro, you can search across both public web content and internal knowledge bases, and collaborate in Perplexity Spaces.
https://www.perplexity.ai/enterprise

Acquia adds new AI capabilities for digital asset management

Acquia Video Creator, by Moovly, is now available as an add-on module to Acquia DAM and PIM (product information management) solutions.
https://www.acquia.com/products/acquia-dam

Sitecore launches Sitecore Stream

Sitecore Stream helps orchestrate marketer experience across Sitecore solutions, including XM Cloud, Content Hub, and Digital Experience Platform (DXP).
https://www.sitecore.com/products/sitecore-stream

All content technology news

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The Gilbane Advisor is authored by Frank Gilbane and is ad-free, cost-free, and curated for content, computing, web, data, and digital experience technology and information professionals. We publish recommended articles and content technology news most Wednesdays. We do not sell or share personal data.

Subscribe | View online | Editorial policy | Privacy policy | Contact