Your business is a constant flow of information. Emails, reports, spreadsheets, presentations, chat logs – it’s all data, and it’s all moving. But how much of it is actually reaching the right person, at the right time, in a way they can trust and act on?
For most organizations, the answer is, "Not as much as we'd like." That's the challenge that fluid knowledge aims to solve. It’s a concept that's gaining significant buzz, with Gartner recognizing it as a transformational technology in several of its 2025 Hype Cycle reports, which positioned Squirro as a sample vendor in this still "embryonic" field.
But what exactly is it? Think of it this way: instead of your company’s information being a series of isolated pools, fluid knowledge is about building a river where every drop of data is clean, trusted, and flows exactly where it's needed.
Fluid Knowledge: The Simple Breakdown
At its core, fluid knowledge is information that has been conditioned so it can move seamlessly between people and applications, enabled by AI agents and assistants.
The key words here are conditioned, accurate, relevant, and trusted. This isn't just about moving data from point A to point B. It's about a fundamental transformation of that data so that it's ready for high-stakes business use, from AI-powered analytics dashboards to an intelligent automation workflows.
This "conditioning" process is heavily reliant on robust information governance – the set of rules and tools that ensure the knowledge is always high-quality. This includes everything from metadata control and data lineage to a full suite of quality assurance checks. It’s what makes the knowledge versatile and, most importantly, trustworthy.
How Does It Actually Work? The Role of AI Agents
So, what exactly makes the data "fluid"? This is where the next generation of AI comes in, specifically AI agents.
Forget the simple chatbots that follow a script. Agentic AI represents a huge leap forward. AI agents are intelligent, autonomous systems that can:
- Perceive: They can understand the context and intent of a request.
- Plan: They break down complex problems into a series of actionable steps.
- Reason: They use logic and available information to make informed decisions. This is where AI decision making and AI problem solving really take flight.
- Act: They can autonomously execute tasks across different systems, from generating a report to updating a CRM record.
Imagine an AI agent tasked with helping a sales rep prepare for a client meeting. The agent doesn't just retrieve a single document. It perceives the context (the upcoming meeting), plans a series of steps (gather recent client communication, pull the latest product specs, and check for any open support tickets), and then acts on all of this information to create a comprehensive, real-time briefing—a perfect example of context-aware AI and real-time learning.
This is how fluid knowledge is created: AI agents are the pumps and purifiers of the information river, ensuring it's always ready to be consumed and acted upon.
Fluid Knowledge vs. Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)
You've probably heard of RAG, or retrieval augmented generation. Both fluid knowledge and RAG are crucial to the future of enterprise AI, but they play different roles.
RAG is a powerful technique that enhances a large language model (LLM) by pulling in external data (your internal documents, for example) to ground its output and reduce "hallucinations." Think of RAG as a quick, targeted trip to the library to grab a specific book to answer a question. It's fantastic for providing accurate, grounded answers to specific queries.
Fluid knowledge, on the other hand, is a broader, more strategic concept. It's not just about a single retrieval; it's about the entire ecosystem. It ensures that the knowledge itself is inherently trustworthy and ready for use across the entire organization, not just in one specific application. It's about building a library where every single book has been meticulously curated, vetted, and cross-referenced so that any search – from any user or system – yields only the most trustworthy results.
Gartner has rated RAG as a "High" benefit, which is great. But they've given fluid knowledge a "Transformational" rating in key areas like the digital workplace and CRM, emphasizing its power to fundamentally change how businesses operate.
Why It Matters: The Business Impact
For business unit heads and executives, this isn't just a technical detail. It’s will eventually become strategic imperative. Here’s why:
- Faster, More Accurate Decisions: When information is fluid, trusted, and always accessible, your team can make better, faster decisions. There's less time spent validating data and more time spent acting on insights.
- Smarter Automation: Intelligent automation can move beyond simple, repetitive tasks. With Fluid Knowledge, you can build systems that can truly solve complex, multi-step problem-solving scenarios, driving significant efficiency gains.
- Eliminating Data Silos: Fluid Knowledge tears down the walls between departments. The sales team can access real-time support data, and the marketing team can leverage customer insights from the service desk, all powered by a single, trusted source of knowledge.
- Building a Foundation for GenAI Success: Without Fluid Knowledge, your generative AI initiatives will always be hampered by fragmented, unreliable data. This concept is the ultimate enabler, providing the trustworthy fuel that your LLMs need to perform at their best.
The Final Word: From Hype to Reality
The hype around generative AI is real, but the true value comes from knowledge is the key to unlocking that next phase, ensuring that the information your AI systems rely on is not just available, but also accurate, pertinent, and seamlessly usable. It’s the difference between a proof-of-concept and a truly transformative enterprise solution.
We have been at the forefront of this evolution, and we’re proud to share that we’ve been positioned on several Gartner Hype Cycles in the category of fluid knowledge. To us, this recognition underscores our commitment to helping businesses not just leverage AI, but do so with intelligence, trust, and real-world impact.
Squirro has been recognized by Gartner as a Representative Vendor in their 2025 Gartner® Market Guide™ for GenAI Platforms in Banking & Investment Services. Download the Gartner Market Guide to learn how your organization can leverage scalable, governed, and contextual AI for BFSI.
