Ms. Rometty, speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s WSJDLive 2016 technology conference, pointed to the company’s new deal with General Motors Co. to pair Watson with GM’s OnStar system in cars as an example of how IBM is extending Watson’s reach. She said such partnerships will have put Watson technology in contact with hundreds of millions of people by the end of this year.
Watson, a collection of artificial-intelligence software delivered as cloud-computing services, is a high-profile part of what IBM calls its “strategic imperatives” to help spur growth amid declines in long-established businesses like servers, software and computing services. Those businesses collectively grew 15% in the third quarter, excluding the effects of currency exchange rates. IBM’s total revenue declined for the 18th straight quarter, but at the modest rate of 0.3%.
IBM CEO Ginni Rometty says despite tough revenue numbers, the company remains strong. She speaks with WSJ's Gerard Baker at the WSJDLive conference in Laguna Beach, Calif.
Ms. Rometty insisted her strategy is on track, noting that the company’s revenue is off very little when considering that the company spun off businesses generating roughly $8 billion in annual revenue.
“Those are the right decisions to make,” she said. “I make no apologies for them.”
GM on Wednesday unveiled a Watson-assisted version of OnStar—a subscription service that provides navigation, diagnostics and other features—to offer mobile-commerce services beyond navigation and entertainment. The new system, dubbed OnStar Go, is designed to learn from users’ behavior to deliver personalized offers from partners such as Exxon Mobil Corp.
For instance, the system might alert drivers who need fuel to make it to their next destination and point the way to Exxon Mobil stations en route. The system doesn’t respond to voice commands now but will by late 2017, IBM said.
IBM on Wednesday also announced an arrangement with the business messaging service Slack, which helps workers to collaborate in private groups. San Francisco-based Slack will use Watson Conversation, an IBM service that processes natural language, to enhance the accuracy and efficiency of Slackbot, a customer-service bot that helps Slack users troubleshoot problems.
IBM CEO Virginia Rometty, speaking at WSJ’s tech conference, sees Watson in contact with hundreds of millions of people by year’s end.
Ms. Rometty said the company is particularly enthusiastic about the uses of Watson in health care. IBM announced a relationship last week with Quest Diagnostics Inc., in which Watson will help analyze the results of genetic sequencing of tumor samples of cancer patients. She said IBM also is helping to provide Watson-based services to help doctors in India, which has a severe shortage of cancer specialists.
Asked about the ethical questions and other risks often linked to AI, Ms. Rometty said the company is working with companies like Facebook Inc. and Google Inc. in an effort to study the issues. She also praised recent federal policy statements about artificial intelligence.
References: wsj.com
Really? A billion people? From the article:
ReplyDelete"GM on Wednesday unveiled a Watson-assisted version of OnStar—a subscription service that provides navigation, diagnostics and other features—to offer mobile-commerce services beyond navigation and entertainment. "
So she thinks a billion people are going to sign up for the OnStar Go service?
I am see a lot of job openings at IBM to test the Watson software. This is a very good sign. I think this could be the beginning of something big.
ReplyDeleteI worked for IBM for 30 years. I saw us almost die and then transform our business into a services powerhouse. When we started that transformation the industry experts doubted that we could do it. And, that transformation was far more difficult than the strategy Ginny has launched.
ReplyDeleteWe were a big hardware business that was challenging services giants like EDS. Tens of thousands of employees had to be re-purposed, the coverage strategy had to be re-engineered, we had to convince our customers to pay us for services they used to get for free and/or outsource their IT operations to us. Yet, we pulled it off. And, just watch what happens next!
The Watson strategy is far more powerful and has far greater potential than anything IBM has ever done. There is virtually no competition for this multi-billion dollar R&D child birth. Only our imaginations limit its uses, its markets, or its profit potential.
Bravo, to Ginny and the Watson team! I'm so very proud of what you are about to do.
Where is Watson hiding? I can talk to Siri, Cortana and Alexa daily. They're not that smart but still something and getting better.
ReplyDeleteBuilding a consumer app and building strong commercial backbone are two different things. IBM is certainly better at the latter and I wish them luck. They will need it.
IBM is going in the right direction. And so is Microsoft.
ReplyDeleteA billion people using Watson by 2018 is a great ambition of IBM. We have to see how Watson change the current "blues"of the tech company.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure IBM shareholders are gratified to know that after 18 consecutive losing quarters, "Ms. Rommety insisted her strategy is on track".
ReplyDeleteWatson is making medical suggestions and able to read 8k pages of research everyday in NC right now. Pretty exciting!!
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