2026-06-08 –, Maschinenhaus
Why do smart agents make dumb mistakes? The culprit is context, an old problem with new solutions. Let's fast-forward through 20 years of search evolution to fix the missing link in today’s Agentic AI.
We’ll demonstrate how to combine Knowledge Graphs and Vector Search to build reliable, context-aware applications using open-source tools.
The challenges of building effective AI systems today echo the early days of web search: we are still struggling to get the context right. But where we once had simple user queries, we now have complex agents demanding structured context that scales faster than any past user.
The key to context has always been finding ways to accumulate, structure, and recall relevant knowledge across interactions, at the point where knowledge graphs and vector search converge.
In this talk, we connect the dots between the old problem of user context and the new reality of Agentic AI, and show accessible ways to create context for both people and programs.
What you will learn in this session while we walk through a solution built only with open-source tools:
1) How to deliver meaningful context to people and agents
2) The tradeoffs between common retrieval approaches
3) Practical patterns you can apply to build more reliable AI applications
Nearly two decades working in Search. David started at Fast Search shortly before it was acquired by Microsoft then continued down the search rabbit hole working on NLP-powered information solutions, machine learning applications, and eventually AI strategy consulting. Now at Veeva Systems, he's building intelligent search and AI-powered SaaS applications for the life sciences.
Vincent is the VP Commercial at Cognee. He worked for 4+ years in venture capital, investing in 20+ AI, open-source, and infrastructure companies, at early-stage all over Europe. As an investor, he led the pre-seed round of Cognee and joined the company full-time as the commercial and growth lead by the end of 2025. He loves to talk about anything related to knowledge graphs, memory, context, world-models, or open-source.
Vincent has an academic background in economics and data sciences from LSE in London.