Knowledge Cast by Enterprise Knowledge Dawn Brushammar - Independent Knowledge Management Consultant & Programme Chair of KMWorld Europe
Aug 28, 2025
Dawn Brushammar, an independent KM consultant with over 25 years of experience from McKinsey to the Oprah Winfrey Show, shares her insights on knowledge management. She discusses the evolving role of librarians in a tech-driven world and the crucial relationship between KM and AI. Dawn emphasizes the importance of structured data for effective AI deployment and offers strategies for creating a knowledge-first organization. She previews her upcoming talk on library science at the Semantic Layer Symposium, highlighting its relevance in today’s AI landscape.
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Episode notes
Library Skills Are AI Backbone
- Librarianship skills form the backbone many AI solutions need because they've been doing taxonomy and tagging for decades.
- Dawn stresses you cannot expect new AI tools to perform well without that preexisting foundation.
KM Is Becoming Cross-Functional
- Cross-functional collaboration is replacing siloed ownership of KM, data, and BI work.
- AI projects accelerate that shift by pulling expertise from many parts of the organization.
Semantic Layer As Translation
- Dawn compares the semantic layer to the librarian's reference interview that translates user needs into subject terms.
- She frames the semantic layer as the translation mechanism between raw data and user-facing meaning.