Watson: IBM's (and IT's) Biggest Breakthrough Since the PC

By

Can you escape IBM's latest innovation, Watson? Big Blue is hammering the cognitive technology into as many avenues as it can. It put together a memorable advertising campaign last seen when IBM was positioning itself as an Internet company (Apologies to Millennials and younger who don't remember that far back). By the end of the year, we'll probably be talking of "Watsonizing" business processes and the Unified Communications cultists will find some way to wedge Watson under their umbrella.

Ignore Carrie Fisher having a therapy session with killer robots for a moment, along with the rest of the celebrity endorsements. IBM is carefully not talking about artificial intelligence (AI) and the myth of the killer AI. Instead, Watson is designed to work with people (Cough) UC hint (Cough). Watson is a partner to pull meaning out of data, not a heartless monster that wants to take over the world.

Two years ago, IBM decided to bet big on Watson, setting up a billion dollar business unit around the technology. Today, IBM has more than 80,000 developers and hundreds of partners putting Watson into every vertical you can think of off the top of your head, and probably all the others you can't. It is the "Cognitive era" says IBM, with Watson helping insurers to manage risks, network security to spot cyberattacks, and helping veterans deal with PTSD, just to name a few applications.

This year is shaping up to be the Year of Watson. At CES in January, IBM's keynote underlined how Watson would work with the Internet of Things (IoT) while other sessions highlighted how Watson's APIs and SDKs could bring cognitive power to any size business via the cloud. Last month, IBM announced the "IBM Watson AI X PRIZE, a Cognitive Computing Competition." Teams will go head to head between now and 2020 at IBM's Watson conference, with three finalists presenting at TED 2020. The winner gets five million dollars for the most audacious and awe-inspiring achievement using cognitive computing. 

Tapping into the power of Watson is not difficult for programmers. IBM already has 26 or so APIs available through its developers cloud service and plans to double that by the end of the year. There's a free sandbox through the Bluemix cloud service that supports up to 100 users, with scaling options based on the number of users, memory usage, instances, and HTTP requests that flow out. Add on sample code via GitHub and application starter kits containing pre-built apps with code that can be modified or extended.

We haven't reached the point yet where you simply talk to Watson by giving it a list of requirements and it builds code for you to solve problems -- that may be the "Killer app" out of the AI X XPRIZE (But we're back to the whole "Killer" and "AI" cliché, to the killer AI crowd...), a couple of years down the road.

Regardless, you're going to be hearing more about Watson over the next year. You'll find it integrated into call center services, network security, health care, the Internet of Things and dozens of other fields that are going to touch your business and personal life. The question you need to be asking is: What can Watson do for you?




Edited by Rory J. Thompson
Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. [Free eNews Subscription]

Contributing Editor

SHARE THIS ARTICLE
Related Articles

How Technology Has Affected eCommerce?

By: Contributing Writer    6/8/2023

Today, the eCommerce sector is still growing and for a good reason. The fact of the matter is the modern technology keeps evolving and reshaping how c…

Read More

The Ambidexterity in Digital Transformation

By: Lenildo Morais    6/8/2023

There are two ways of distinguishing digital transformation: representative and generative digital transformation. Digital ambidexterity embraces both…

Read More

As Open Source on the Mainframe Continues to Gain Popularity, Linux Foundation Announces Call for Papers

By: Arti Loftus    6/8/2023

The Linux Foundation's Open Mainframe Project has announced the launch of Call for Proposals (CFPs) for its 4th annual Open Mainframe Summit.

Read More

Jumio Unmasks the Deceptive World of Deepfakes

By: Greg Tavarez    6/7/2023

Jumio, a provider of automated identity proofing solutions, recently released its 2023 Online Identity Study to shed light on the potential risks pose…

Read More

A Boost to Enterprise Printing: ThinPrint Launches New Print Management Solution

By: Alex Passett    6/6/2023

The latest iteration to ThinPrint's solutions portfolio is ThinPrint 13. It features V4 printer driver support, cost-saving options, a PowerShell exte…

Read More