In the late 1990s, the Decision Support Group at the University of Fribourg developed a model for decision support software. This described the interface between data and models on one hand, and graphical interfaces for exploring them and making decisions on the other, as a knowledge engine.[1][2] They also developed a mathematical modeling language, LPL, in concert with that work.[3]
With the rise of the semantic web, natural language processing, and topical knowledge bases, a number of other analytical tools have been categorized as knowledge engines, including in genomics (KnowEnG),[4] modeling human action (PaStaNet),[5] and speeding up general-purpose question answering.[6]
General-purpose search and discovery tools such as WolframAlpha have also described themselves as knowledge engines.[7]
