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Ecosystems are typically evaluated and understood using standard visible material metrics, such as new products, patents, startups, VC funding, jobs, and successful exits. Yet emerging entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEEs) provide many possibilities for members not signaled by such visible markers. Consequently, policymakers may have a difficult time making informed decisions about incentives and regulations to foster economic growth through ecosystem emergence. To address this methods and measurement issue, we conceptualize emerging systems using both cultural and material approaches to develop a comparative typology and apply it to an emerging regional ecosystem growing around artificial intelligence (AI). We render cultural and material maps using topic modeling of Twitter feeds versus well-placed others, identify strategies in each, and discuss relevant policies for enhancing EEEs to realize …