Think
Ideas, essays and opinions on intelligence, systems thinking and the changing relationship between humans and machines.
↗INDEPENDENT RESEARCH & PRODUCT STUDIO
Cognitive
intelligence
for an
agentic world.
Portend Labs researches cognitive intelligence, applied AI, systems thinking and strategy for an increasingly autonomous world. We publish ideas, develop frameworks, build products and advise organizations navigating complexity.
THE QUESTION
What happens when intelligence is no longer confined to the human mind?
Portend Labs explores the systems that emerge when knowledge, decisions, software and machines begin to operate together.
THE LAB
Four ways we work.
Research
Original frameworks and research into cognitive infrastructure, enterprise ontology and agentic systems.
↗Build
Products, prototypes and experiments that turn ideas into working systems.
↗Advise
Strategic thinking for organizations navigating data, AI, enterprise architecture and autonomous systems.
↗SELECTED RESEARCH
Ideas that become infrastructure.
01
RESEARCH / PREPRINT
The Authority Resolution Framework — A Five-Domain Ontology for Governing Who and What Decides at Scale
A proposed five-domain ontology for resolving authority across people, business vocabulary, processes, executable permissions and external real-world context.
Read the research ↗ABOUT PORTEND LABS
Building the
cognitive layer.
Portend Labs is an independent research and product studio focused on the infrastructure of intelligence.
Its work sits at the intersection of enterprise architecture, data, AI, knowledge systems, organizational intelligence and agentic transformation.
Founded by Parviz Shariff, the studio develops original intellectual property alongside practical systems and strategic advisory work.
More about Portend Labs ↗PORTEND LABS