Integrating Emerging Technologies into Enterprise Architecture: Challenges and Opportunities

Objectives: This paper provides a comprehensive examination of the challenges and opportunities associated with integrating emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and Blockchain within Enterprise Architecture (EA) frameworks. Methods/Approach: Through a systematic literature review (SLR) approach, this study identifies and synthesizes key findings from 20 selected papers, offering insights into the complexities that organizations face during such integrations. Results: The findings suggest that there are a number of issues, such as the difficulty of integrating new technologies with the current EA frameworks, problems with the management of the new technologies, and change management issues within organizations. Nevertheless, according to the study, when it comes to EA’s capacity to evolve with agility, scope, and inventive solutions, these technologies hold great promise. The research results point out that although there is basic theoretical support in the TOGAF and Zachman frameworks, these need to be evolved to properly address the dynamic aspects of such systems. Conclusions: the paper suggests that future studies should focus on specifying adaptive EA frameworks, the empirical investigation of the proposed models embedded in the investigated organizations, and conducting comparative cross-national studies to investigate the differential effects of the integration of EA in organizations. The research contributes to both the scientific body of knowledge in the field of EAs and the practical approaches, providing a guideline for organizations that are planning to adopt new technologies in their architectural plans.