SiliconANGLE theCUBE · Oct 14, 2026 · 23m · 16m saved
With Jim Jacob, AI and Advanced Analytics Executive at Cummins
Cummins got enterprise-wide visibility into its tariff exposure in about three weeks by connecting supplier, invoice, customer and logistics data in a graph.
Jim Jacob, AI and advanced analytics executive at Cummins, told John Furrier on SiliconANGLE theCUBE that many large companies are still trying to organize the same data in tables and master-data systems. Cummins, which makes power for transportation and data centers, began building a graph foundation about five years ago instead.
"There are companies that are still running around trying to figure out tables and master data and all of the traditional stuff that is 80s, 90s, and I'm like, no, that is a long way home." — Jim Jacob
Jim has worked with graph technology since around 2012, starting at 3M. He arrived at Cummins to find that its employees spent most of their working time assembling data before they could use it.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 23 minutes of audio, 7 minutes of reading.
Here are the 8 takeaways that matter.
Key Takeaways
Graph technology is still under-adopted, and old industrial companies have the most to gain from it
An ontology hard-codes a company's context so an AI agent stays inside a guardrail and does not hallucinate
Cummins got enterprise-wide tariff visibility in about 3 weeks, against Jim's estimate of 6–7 months without graph
AI sped the work up further
The graph also surfaced exposures nobody asked about, such as border taxes and customs duty
Cummins staff spent 70–80% of their time wrangling data, by its CFO's count, against 40–50% at Jim's previous company
The goal is a one-line question in any function that returns an answer the way a search engine does
1. Graph Tech Is Underused
Jim has worked with graph technology since around 2012, when he started using it at 3M. He thinks companies have still not adopted it to the extent its capability deserves.
Jim Jacob says graph technology has not caught on as widely as it should
"I personally don't believe that it has rooted in enough, and that's, for me personally, that's a shame because of the real capability it brings to bear." — Jim Jacob
The companies with the most to gain, in his view, are large industrials that have operated for decades. They are "not digital natives." Mergers, acquisitions and divestitures have left their data spread across disconnected systems.
"These companies are going to benefit so much with something like graph when they understand what they can do for disparate data systems as they build their enterprise context." — Jim Jacob
