An enterprise ontology sits above individual systems. Where a database schema describes one application, an ontology describes the business itself: what a capability is, how it relates to an outcome, which process it depends on. It captures meaning, not just structure.
The value is consistency. When strategy, operations, and technology teams draw on the same defined concepts, they stop talking past each other. Recommendations become traceable, because every term resolves to a known entity with known relationships. An LLM without a governed model of the business guesses; grounded in one, its answers can be traced.