Many companies are already using IBM’s Watson to transform and grow their businesses quickly and efficiently. But what is Watson and how is it transforming individuals and companies?
IBM Watson
IBM Watson is a cognitive computing system that takes in questions expressed in natural language and then use Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and algorithms to understand them and return with an answer as close as possible. Watson was developed on IBM’s DeepQA project and now, its advanced QA capabilities are used by various enterprise customers in many applications. IBM has formed Watson’s knowledge base by providing it with many documents, including databases, dictionaries, newswire articles, encyclopedias, taxonomies and different reference materials.
Watson was originally made for answering questions on the Jeopardy, a quiz show organized in 2011. It was able to win against human competitors because it not only uses conventional computing but also three other capabilities, such as dynamic learning, hypothesis generation and natural language processing. One cannot find any other technology other than Watson with these capabilities combined.
Watson has the capability to unlock and use unstructured data that constitutes around 80 percent of the information. It knows that all the created data is not equal. It can differentiate between different types of information easily. When questions are asked, Watson collects relevant data from different sources and creates hypotheses. Then, it tests the data to get the most accurate results for that question. As IBM Watson can read and analyze from natural language, just like humans, it can make informed and context-specific decisions that we expect from a human.
IBM Watson can be seen applied to different fields, including education, medicine and retail. The success of Watson indicates that this technology will be here for a long time because of its ability to share knowledge in every field. The retail expertise of Watson extends into the fields of finance, real estate, banking and travel. Watson-based technologies can be seen replacing the services of many people, including real estate agents, bank officers and even financial advisors by using comprehensive knowledge to give detailed answers to the questions posed. Watson is also seen changing the medical industry. After tweaking its knowledge base, Watson will be able to be up-to-date with the research data and also provide the best treatment recommendations.
Very soon, Watson will disrupt many professions. This is the reason so many professionals are worried about their future. But as an entrepreneur, you will have to accept that IBM Watson offers a great opportunity to use the vast amounts of information available for increasing profits and offer amazing services to the customers.