Knowledge Area

Ontology — Modeling Data as Objects, Links, and Actions

How to turn your company’s reality into Objects, Links, and Actions that both AI and people can understand together — instead of leaving it as tables and columns.

Why this area matters

The most common reason enterprise AI never gets past the chatbot stage isn’t model quality — it’s that the data still has no meaning attached to it. Ontology is a practical way to define that meaning up front, so AI and people can work with the same data using the same language.

Reading order

  1. What Is Palantir Ontology? A Practitioner’s Explanation
  2. Ontology Core Components: Object, Link, Action Type, and Functions Explained
  3. Ontology Naming Falls Apart Over Time — Here’s a Standard That Prevents It
  4. Palantir Foundry Ontology Manager Guide: 5 Mistakes to Avoid When You Design Your First One
  5. RDB Joins vs. Ontology Traversal: The Same Question, Two Data Approaches

Curious how Ontology gets built on top of an actual Foundry pipeline?

Go to the Foundry guides

Further reading