Release Notes - AO Platform
Release Notes - AO Platform
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Release Notes - 5.0 - AO Platform

Intended audience: SOLUTION DEVELOPERS

AO Platform: 5.0


Release Date

  • October 2026


Overview

  • Release 5.0 builds on the previous 4.x releases of the AO Platform. We continue to introduce many new features that will make the creation and maintenance of Ontologies and Easy Answers solutions much more effortless, productive, and rewarding.

  • The 5.0 release continues with a strong focus on enhancing the Composers that support Easy Answers solution development, integration with new capabilities, such as the

  • This topic provides a high-level overview of the enhancements made in this release.


New in Release for AO Platform

Ontology and MSO Composers

  • Ontology Discovery - new option to use LLM-generated MSO/MSO Property Names and Descriptions during the Ontology Discovery process. See Step 5 - Summary.

  • Ontology > Semantic Templates page - new ability to generate Semantic Templates from questions. Wizard will import questions and suggest templates to be created. Semantic Templates aim to improve accuracy and speed of generating answers as well as reduce token use. See Ontology - Semantic Templates.

  • Ontology > LLM Content page - new Ontology-level Prompt Instructions can now be created. This extends the functionality from the MSO Composer, where Prompt Instructions can be created for individual MSOs. Ontology-level Prompt Instructions allow instructions to span multiple MSOs and associated Properties. See Ontology - LLM Content.

  • Ontology/MSO Composer Permissions - new ability to set “Allow Edit” and “Allow Use” permissions for Ontologies and associated MSOs. If “Allow Use” is selected, the Ontology and MSOs become read-only for the User’s Role. See Viewing an Ontology (Read-Only), Viewing an MSO (Read-Only), and Ontology Permissions.

  • Ontology Settings - More than 80 new configuration settings have been introduced and/or updated in this release, most notably all OpenAI LLMs (see Admin section below). A new layout has been added to make it easier and faster to load configuration properties for a specific section of the more than 130 total properties. Finally, all Ontology Settings are now bundled into Settings Profiles, allowing the solution developer to simply select an out-of-the-box profile for a given Ontology. Profiles have a strong focus on the selection of the LLM Provider and Models to be used across all the functionality in the AO Platform that makes use of GenAI/LLMs. See Ontology - Settings.

  • Content Repository page - new Excel File Viewer - available as a JS Function as well as in the UI, allowing users to view Excel Files directly after uploading to Content Repositories. See Ontology - Content Repositories.

  • Performance Analytics - The Easy Answers Performance Analytics dialog has been enhanced to include token consumption and cost estimation for questions asked in Easy Answers. See Performance Analytics.

  • Data Source - the MySQL database has been improved and now supports both the Ontology Discovery for Ontology creation from MySQL as well as in a Federated Data configuration. See Step 2 - Data Source Type.

  • Ontology Transport - new ability to delete MSOs from the target system that the ontology transport is being imported into if the MSOs are not included in the transport. See Adding an Ontology to Transport.


Solution Composer

  • 3rd Party Access - ability to enable/disable 3rd party solution access to Easy Answers solutions. See Solution - General.


Quick Insights and Insights Composer


Admin Solution

  • User API Keys - provision to allow individual user API Keys to be created. Can be used with AO MCP Server when integrated with, eg., Claude AI solutions. See Admin > Security.

  • Usability and Navigation - a resize option for the left-side navigational panel, and a new option for creating a flat structure of the Admin panel have been introduced. See Admin.

  • LLM Models - this release sees a major update to the OpenAI LLM Models. Many OpenAI LLMs have been deprecated and/or retired during the past year in favor of new LLMs, and the LLMs used by the functionality in the AO Platform have therefore been updated for use of the 5.x/6.x OpenAI LLMs. See Admin > Generative AI.

  • Integration - ability to use the WSO2 API Gateway allowing access to eg., OpenAI LLMs on Azure. See Using WSO2 API Gateway to Connect to Azure Open AI.


Transport Tool


Other

  • User Menu > User Settings > API Keys - new provision to allow individual user API Keys to be created. Can be used with AO MCP Server when integrated with eg. Claude AI solutions. See User Settings.

  • Snowflake User Principal Propagation - this is an option allowing for user and data permission configurations in a Snowflake database environment that will be used by the AO Platform. The default in the AO Platform is that all users are represented by a single service connection to any database environment, and therefore the AO Platform manages data permissions via Role configurations. See Using Snowflake for User-Principal Propagation.

  • Apply License Dialog - as a security precaution, the Apply License dialog has been moved to after the user has signed in to the AO Platform. See Adding the AO Platform License.


3rd Party Integration/Connectivity Solutions

AO MCP Server

    • AO MCP Server - an MCP Server allowing GenAI tools to interact with Ontologies and ask Easy Answers questions is now available for integration with, eg., Claude, Cursor, or other AI software solutions.

  • Authentication - ability to authenticate with an API Key or OAuth via OpenID Connect.

  • Claude Skill - file for optimizing integration with App Orchid Semantic Layer and Ontology.

  • See Using MCP Server Connector with Anthropic Claude.


AO Easy Answers Embedded Chat Agent

  • React implementation of the Easy Answers for Mobile app, but available for embedding into web applications.

  • Enhanced with 20+ visualizations as well as summarized data results.

  • Questions are answered using Interpretation Modes, with ambiguity/unknown word resolution, and spell-checking and correction.

  • Includes new Semantic Templates and Question Verification to improve accuracy, performance, and reduce cost when answering questions.

  • See Embedding The AO Easy Answers Agent into a Web Application.


OData Connector for Power BI, Excel, …


REST APIs

  • RBAC Security - new and improved REST API endpoints for RBAC Security. See Documentation - REST API section.

  • Transport Support - new and improved REST API endpoints supporting automation of Transport packages. See Documentation - REST API section.

  • SparQL Support - ability to query the AO Platform Semantic Layer using the SparQL query language, supporting multiple output formats for getting Ontology data into other applications. See Using SparQL Connection from Postman via Ontop Virtual Knowledge Graph.

  • Cypher Support (Preview!) - ability to query the AO Platform Semantic Layer using the Cypher query language, supporting multiple output formats for getting Ontology data into other applications. See Using Cypher Connection from Postman.


Library Updates

  • The Highcharts Library is now hosted by App Orchid; previously, it was CDN-hosted.

  • Snowflake JDBC Driver - upgraded from 3.13.26 to 4.3.2.


Documentation


Deprecations/Removals

  • The following GenAI/Large Language Models have been removed:

    • OpenAI - All LLMs prior to 5.x models. The AO Platform is now using OpenAI 5.x/6.x models.

  • The AO Knowledge Assistant (custom GPT), available from the Easy Answers Home page, has been removed. OpenAI has announced the sunset of Custom GPTs as of 11 December 2026. Using AI to extract summaries of the AO product documentation can be done from any GenAI system at this point.


Known Issues/Limitations

  • Because of the upgraded OpenAI LLMs in the AO Platform's 5.0 release, some Easy Answers questions that resolve using JOIN between multiple MSOs will generate an AI Response table for the retrieved data instead of one or more auto-curated visualizations (such as regular tables, charts, and map apps). We are working to address this issue in a 5.0 patch release as soon as possible.

  • If using the Apache Druid data source and a Categorical Trait is created for one or more properties, please make sure that the MSO > Settings > Easy Answers > Quantitative Views > Bucketing Type is set to “Value”. The Apache Druid data source does not support “Percentage” as a Bucketing Type.

  • If using the Apache Druid data source and a Sortable Trait is created for one or more properties, a Druid limitation exists that only allows column sorting of time-based properties. See https://druid.apache.org/docs/latest/querying/sql/#order-by.

  • When using the DuckDB database during the Ontology Discovery process for storing data imported from Excel, make sure to select the DuckDB/MotherDuck option. The File-Based and In-Memory versions of DuckDB are not supported.


System Requirements