Semantic Web and AI: Can we finally realize the original vision?

The original idea of the Semantic Web was not just to bring knowledge representation and reasoning to the Web but to make these technologies pervasive in our use of information technology. The idea has matured into modern enterprise knowledge graphs and – according to Gartner – has become a major mainstream trend. Organizations are using knowledge graphs without feeling the need to advertise this fact. However, getting here took a long time,” the original Semantic Web vision was introduced at the tail end of the so-called “AI winter”, and the close relationship with AI greatly slowed its adoption. Now, given the popularity of generative AI, we should re-examine the vision and understand what is the role of AI in the Semantic Web, and what is the role of the Semantic Web in AI. In this talk I will reflect on the more than a quarter century of work on building the technologies for the Semantic Web and how this work still continues. I will discuss the “wins”, the “losses”, the lessons learned, and describe how I see the future. I believe we are now ready for the next step: to finally realize the original Semantic Web vision, that of agents, planning, and reasoning.