April 13, 2017

What IBM’s Great Leap Forward Means to Your Business

IBM has been working to include all of us in the future of technology.  Since the start of the 21st century IBM has introduced two revolutionary products to the world—Watson, IBM’s foray into artificial intelligence (you might remember its debut in 2010 on Jeopardy!) and, more recently, plans for quantum computers. In case you haven’t kept up with what’s been happening since Watson’s debut in 2010, IBM made Watson’s API available in 2013 to software application providers so that they could begin working on applications and services compatible with Watson’s capabilities that could benefit an array of businesses.  That 2013 action was a step toward making AI technology more widely available not just to those working in a scientific or medical research facility or to companies with multi-million dollar budgets. When Watson was first introduced, IBM suggested that as long as the technology kept advancing, the cost would eventually come down. As of 2017, thanks to the advancement and work on those apps and services, Watson is now being utilized by businesses of all sizes around the world, and IBM Q (its initiative to build commercially available universal quantum computers for business and science) isn’t far behind.

Let’s take a look at what the capabilities are for Watson and the quantum computer, how companies are putting them to use in businesses now and what it means for the future.

IBM, Watson, Quantum computers

IBM describes Watson as, “…a cognitive technology that can think like a human.” Watson has the ability to understand and interpret all types of data, this includes unstructured text, audio and images. It has the ability to read a user’s personality, emotion and tone to provide companies with personalized feedback and suggestions. Customer insight will become more efficient and more accurate in comparison to current methods.

One example of how Watson is being used is in customer service. Watson’s technology is compatible with chatbots, meaning more complex dialogue than ever before can now be exchanged with your customers. The North Face, a company with a big enough budget to get on board with Watson back in 2013, is now using a chatbot application with Watson’s technology that can intuitively answer a question such as, “What do I need for a two-week hiking trip in the mountains?” Welltok, another initial investor, has been using Watson, for its health platform CaféWell, “…to add cognitive computing capabilities to the platform and create CaféWell Concierge, which gets to know users and provide even more relevant and personalized guidance," again, allowing users to ask questions in regular human speech and receive an intelligent more personalized response.  While chatbots have been in use for some time, the sophistication and human like qualities have been missing until now. Watson is closing in on passing the Turing Test. Your website can now in a more serviceable way interact with live visitors using AI 24 hours a day.

Finally, Watson has the ability to learn on its own. Its capability will increase and improve the more Watson is used and adopted in the marketplace.

IBM, Watson, Quantum computer

Now for quantum computing. IBM Q is the name of the universal quantum computer IBM plans to make available to the world. IBM is in the running with the likes of Google and Microsoft on making the first quantum computer widely available for commercial use. IBM’s theory in doing this is that a classical computer, computers we’re using now, will continue to advance with innovations in AI; however, they are limited in scope by their architecture and dependence on bit technology.

IBM Q will have the capability of analyzing data sets with patterns that are too big or too complex for classical computer architecture to handle.

The IBM Q system will be made up of about 50 qubit, which is a unit of quantum information similar to how classical computers operate using bits. Quantum computing has the potential to complete calculations exponentially faster and more accurately than traditional computers. Businesses can currently access and interact with a 5 qubit system through Quantum on IBM Cloud. The first commercial use of Quantum computing will most likely be applied in extremely large data set analysis such as DNA sequencing and level 2 Chaos system modeling.  But the proof will be in the application of the technology as IBM continues to improve.

Watson and IBM Q will provide commercial insight and intelligence that is currently unavailable to most businesses. Their ability to perform predictive analysis and replace humans in a number of roles utilizing AI will, in the short term, begin to drive down the cost of some types of personal services such as: bank tellers, call centers, and chat channels. They will usher in a new era of data intelligence that we are only beginning to understand. As the technologies mature, undoubtedly uses thus far unimagined will be discovered.