The Graph revolution: What 2024 taught us and where we’re headed

Entering 2025, I want to take a moment to wish everyone in our community a year filled with success, innovation, and discovery. This is a time to reflect on the progress we’ve made and to look ahead with optimism and determination. Thank you to all those who are being part of the incredible journey that is shaping the future of graph technology.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this letter:

• A reflection about the current technology trends around graph and AI
• Highlights from the Linkurious community
• Product innovations from 2024
• A look into what to expect from 2025

It has already been over 15 years since I decided to take part in the Gephi project. In all those years, I’ve seen a lot of changes in our space. But like me, many veterans observe that the graph technology landscape is currently undergoing a profound transformation. 

There have already been great transformations in the past, but I believe a revolution could now be at work. We are at the dawn of a thrilling new era that could deeply reshape the technology ecosystem as the use of graph accelerates and expands. 

What was once the domain of early adopters - marked by plenty of experiments filled with enthusiasm and hope, but also with challenges and sometimes disillusionment - is now transitioning into a rationalization phase, with broader democratization on the horizon. More easily than ever before, organizations can break down barriers to embrace connected data and unlock its transformative potential. Several trends are driving this shift.

The accelerated adoption of cloud technologies has reduced infrastructure complexities and barriers to adoption, with cloud services and SaaS solutions taking center stage. Are on-premise graph databases really dead? Probably not yet (we love to be a bit provocative sometimes), but their days might be numbered. They could remain limited to very specific cases. On the other hand, leading relational databases such as Oracle and prominent clouders like Google or AWS might have a say in the graph world of tomorrow as adapted query languages and technical improvements may keep them competitive for certain use cases. 

As organizations focus less on graph database implementation, IT and data professionals’ attention is now turning toward mastering connected data, solving challenges related to integrating it from various sources, harnessing complex datasets, and expanding the adoption of new query languages.

On the business side, more and more organizations are beginning to embed “graph thinking” into their global operations. Visionary companies we work with, like Volvo Cars, have established in-house graph-specialized services to better meet internal needs. Others, like Ria Money Transfer, have already generalized the use of graph technology for compliance purposes.

Over the last couple of years, the rapid acceleration of AI, particularly in areas like generative AI, has underscored the critical role of graph technology. Graphs provide the contextual richness that intelligent systems need to excel, especially using GraphRAG (Graph Retrieval-Augmented Generation). 

According to Gartner, the use of graph technologies in AI systems is expected to triple by 2027, highlighting the immense opportunities ahead. In the next few years, the challenge—and opportunity—for technology leaders should be in driving innovations that merge GenAI and machine learning with advanced graph capabilities tailored to specific industries.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently shared a bold vision for the future of software development, stating, “Applications as we know them are going away in favor of agents.” While this claim has sparked excitement and debate, it’s important to approach it with a dose of pragmatism. Such a seismic shift sounds more like a bid to generate buzz than a near-term reality. The truth is, moving entirely to AI agents faces significant hurdles, especially in terms of resource availability and infrastructure readiness in the mid-future.

AI-driven agents may indeed find their place in non-sensitive, low-risk use cases, where they can streamline operations. However, for high-stakes scenarios involving sensitive data or critical decision-making, fully automated AI agents are unlikely to replace human oversight.

In these contexts, humans must remain central to the decision-making process, with AI playing a supportive role—augmenting insights and enhancing the speed and accuracy of decisions, but never fully replacing human judgment.

Regardless of how the adoption of AI agents evolves, one thing is certain: graph technology will be a foundational enabler of AI systems. By unifying data and providing the contextual depth needed for intelligent systems, graph-powered solutions will continue to play a pivotal role in solving complex, real-world challenges.

At Linkurious, we are committed to driving innovations in graph technology that empower organizations to navigate this future, leveraging what’s best in AI and human intelligence.

As we welcome the new year and reflect on the future of technology, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to our incredible clients, partners, and the vibrant community of graph enthusiasts that help us imagine the path forward. Your belief in the transformative power of this technology and your collaboration fuel our mission to make connected data accessible to all. 

Over the last 12 years, at Linkurious, we’ve been constantly listening, collaborating, and co-creating to picture how graph technology should evolve and drive innovations that deliver even more value for everyone. Your trust and shared passion for graph technology are the driving forces behind our success. Together, we are proving that this technology is not just a tool but a catalyst for change, innovation, and progress.

In 2024, besides participating with many visionary experts in the popular Gartner Data & Analytics Summit in London, we celebrated the power of community with the inaugural Linkurious Days in Paris, Madrid, and London (you can read the recap HERE). These events brought together over 200 clients, partners, and graph enthusiasts. We were joined by forward thinking organizations such as Ria Money Transfer, Lloyds Bank, Floa Bank, a prominent UK government department, the IT company delivering digital services for Belgian public institutions, and GPIS-GIE (the organization in charge of the safety and surveillance in the social housing sector in Paris). Along with some of our key partners like Nuix, Senzing, Graph Everywhere, and Aptitude Global.

We also continued to spotlight the work of unsung heroes around the globe, such as The Sentry and Obsalytics, whose innovative use of graph technology is driving meaningful, positive changes. Their achievements inspire us to push boundaries and envision new possibilities for graphs.

Last year, we were thrilled to reach a community of 10,000 users globally. Our ultimate goal is now to reach 100,000 users by 2030, democratizing graph technology and making it an indispensable tool for decision-making in every industry. The entire Linkurious team is fully dedicated to supporting and expanding this inspiring community. We are excited to work hand-in-hand to achieve this vision and unlock the full potential of connected data.

This past year, we reached significant milestones that strengthened our leadership in the graph technology space and paved the way for a promising future. 

In today’s increasingly complex data environment, organizations face mounting challenges in connecting disparate data, extracting actionable insights, and making timely, informed decisions rooted in context. That’s why we worked hard to launch a brand new contextual Decision Intelligence platform, a next-generation modular solution that integrates entity resolution AI with unparalleled native graph technology. 

Designed with our customers’ and partners’ feedback in mind, this platform stands apart by enabling organizations to build robust, connected data foundations while achieving faster time-to-value than other decision intelligence solutions. Combining the best of each world, our platform aims at setting a new standard for graph powered decision intelligence in terms of flexibility, scalability, operational efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.

Meanwhile, we’ve continued to enhance our existing technology to better address the evolving needs of the community of graph enthusiasts. And, last year, we delivered transformative updates to our core offerings: 

For Linkurious Enterprise, our off-the-shelf graph visualization and analytics software, we introduced new key features including:

• New Open Cypher connector with Amazon Neptune and the possibility to buy on AWS Marketplace
• Node grouping to simplify the graph
• Tabular data view in the selection panel with advanced search, filtering, and export
• Data preprocessing steps and innovative approaches to exploring large graphs with Graph Analytics libraries
• Faster use of queries thanks to search, filter, tags, and favorite queries
• Faster and easier query creation with Cypher auto-complete and the development of a no-code query builder that will be released in January 2025.

Last but not least, with Ogma, our JavaScript graph visualization library, we worked to take user experience and performance to the next level. In this regards, we have:

• Achieved a state of the art GPU layout 40x faster than before, enabling users to tackle complex graph visualization challenges with unprecedented efficiency. 
• Delivered smoother and faster transformations, refining and expanding animations capabilities. 
• Empowered users to access enriched information in geo-mode.
• Worked on combos to elevate the experience with visual groupings of nodes and links in complex graphs.

As we step into 2025, our priorities are clear:

1. Increasing productivity and efficiency for end users: We will continue to refine our graph visualization and analytics tools to shorten time-to-insight, making complex data analysis intuitive and fast for both technical and non-technical users and augmenting decision making capabilities with AI.
2. Help building solid data foundations: By breaking down silos and simplifying data unification with entity resolution AI and graph analytics, we aim to help organizations establish robust foundations for connected data, without hassle.
3. Accelerating delivery: We are committed to enabling our customers to achieve faster time-to-value, significantly reducing the time required to realize the economic impact of graph powered technology.

Here’s to 2025—a year of bold aspirations, transformative innovation, and deepened collaboration. Together, we can unlock the full potential of graphs to shape the future of a new generation of technology.

Best wishes,

Sébastien Heymann
CEO of Linkurious