Is the era of the knowledge portal over?

Ever since Generative AI became part of our daily work, one question has been on my mind:
What is the future of the knowledge portal? Or, in many organizations, the professional intranet that has long served as the gateway to organizational and professional knowledge.

The more I think about it, the more my answer becomes:
Yes... and no.

Let me start with the no.
We still need a gateway to professional knowledge.
But perhaps it is time to retire not only the old portal design, but even the word portal itself.
Not because the gateway has disappeared, but because its purpose has fundamentally changed.
Sometimes, a new name helps us let go of old assumptions. It signals that we are not simply improving yesterday's solution, but designing something fundamentally different.
I find myself thinking of it as a Professional Hub.

So what should the home page of this hub look like?
The obvious temptation is to imagine a single chatbot and a prompt box that will lead us to everything we need.
We've been here before.
When search engines became our primary way of finding information, many believed that search alone would be enough. Experience taught us otherwise.
We learned that:
People don't only need to find knowledge. Organizations also need to proactively bring important knowledge to them.
Search is essential, but the human mind still benefits from meaningful structure, navigation, and context.
I believe the same lesson applies in the age of Generative AI.
A single prompt box is not enough.
The home page of a modern Professional Hub should probably include, alongside AI conversations:
What you should know – knowledge that is proactively brought to your attention.
Professional starters – role- and topic-based entry points that help you begin your work in the right context.

But what should each of these actually contain?
That, in my opinion, is where the real innovation begins.
I'll explore that in my next post.
Stay tuned.