Section 8

AI4EA Core Engine

Four interconnected architecture pillars: sourcing, knowledge, integration and governance.

The Core Engine represents the primary architecture decision space of AI4EA. Its four pillars are interconnected decision domains rather than sequential stages. Governance, security, economics and evaluation operate across the architecture, while sourcing, knowledge and integration decisions are evaluated collectively for each use case.

Business Needs & AI Use Cases

Pillar I

AI Sourcing & Model Strategy

  • Build / Buy / Configure
  • Model Selection
  • RAG vs. Fine-Tuning
  • TCO & Latency
  • Model Governance

Core artifact
AI Sourcing & Model Strategy Decision

Pillar II

Data & Knowledge Architecture

  • Enterprise Data Access
  • Hybrid Search (Vector + Lexical)
  • Knowledge Graphs
  • Metadata & Lineage
  • Knowledge Reuse & Access Control

Core artifact
AI Data & Knowledge Architecture

Pillar III

AI Integration & Orchestration

  • Agents & Tools
  • APIs & Events
  • Workflows & Orchestration
  • Human-in-the-Loop
  • Enterprise System Integration

Core artifact
AI Integration & Orchestration Architecture

Pillar IV

Governance, Security & Economics

  • Security & Privacy Controls
  • Responsible AI
  • Risk & Compliance
  • Evaluation & Monitoring
  • FinOps & Cost Management

Core artifact
AI Governance, Security & Economics Architecture

Continuous Evaluation & Observability

Quality · Risk · Security · Cost · Performance

Figure 5 — AI4EA Core Architecture Engine