Katariina Kari: Knowledge Graph and Ontology Practice at IKEA – Episode 163

Content Strategy Insights

Katariina Kari Knowledge graphs let people and computers work from the same body of facts to create uniquely informative and powerful experiences. Katariina Kari and her colleagues at IKEA use ontologies and knowledge graphs to drive applications like recommendation systems and to streamline back-end processes like image recognition. Katariina balances her engineering expertise with a deep appreciation for the humans who create and use AI applications like knowledge graphs. We talked about: her work on IKEA's knowledge graph, in particular how their ontology brings meaning to their data model how web standards like RDF and OWL undergird ontology and knowledge graph work the benefits of codifying domain knowledge in a way that permits it to be used in multiple applications, e.g., both IKEA's recommendation system and an internal image-recognition app their system to capture subject matter expert insight in the knowledge graph with intuitive authoring tooling for the SMEs the three-tiered view they take of knowledge graph construction at IKEA: the ontology layer, which includes hundreds of class and property definitions the categories layer, which includes thousands of controlled-vocabulary terms the product/instance layer, which includes tens of thousands of specific instances of products and media asssets her strong feelings about the "human in the loop" and the need for codified, human-validated facts when building AI applications, as well as thinking that is grounded in the humanities and social sciences the need to stay critical in your consumption of information about AI, especially the current hype around ChatGPT and other LLMs Katariina's bio Katariina Kari is the lead ontologist at Inter IKEA Systems B.V. Katariina holds both a Master of Science and a Master of Music and is specialised in the semantic web. At IKEA, she models the IKEA Knowledge Graph; a common vocabulary to offer customers compelling interior design solutions in the digital space. In her free time, Katariina advises institutions, such as chamber music festivals, in digitalisation, guiding the humanities to the digital age. Connect with Katariina online LinkedIn Instagram Twitter Blog posts and videos IKEA’s Knowledge Graph and Why It Has Three Layers The Art of Ontology Building, and Communicating, a Knowledge Graph in Zalando (video) Building The Fashion Knowledge Graph (video) Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/vu-wWUKm0YU Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 163. Large language models like ChatGPT are getting all the attention nowadays. But another AI technology - the knowledge graph - is helping enterprises apply knowledge and facts about their products and customers to deliver powerful content experiences. Katariina Kari and her colleagues at IKEA have developed a system the captures hundreds of years of subject matter expertise to drive customer recommendation systems and automate and streamline internal processes. Interview transcript Larry: Hey everyone, welcome to episode number 163 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really happy today to welcome to the show Katariina Kari. Katariina is the lead ontologist at Inter IKEA Systems. So welcome Katariina. Tell the folks a little bit more about what being an ontologist at IKEA entails. Katariina: Hi Larry. Thank you for having me here in your podcast. That's a lot of episodes, I must say. So being a lead ontologist at Inter IKEA Systems means that I'm basically in charge for how we shape the knowledge graph. So we've committed to, and we've been doing that for the past two years, to build a knowledge graph for the purpose of IKEA. And to capture IKEA know-how about interior design and people's homes and furniture for the home, which we are selling in our big blue boxes in the potato field.