IBM’s Watson, the supercomputer that combines artificial intelligence (AI) and analytical software for optimal performance, is seemingly popping up everywhere, from providing recipes with the ingredients in your home to educating students in classrooms to assisting patients in hospitals. After getting much attention from competing and winning against human rivals in the game show Jeopardy! in 2011, the language-based supercomputer hasn’t completely left the spotlight. Since its many useful successes, Watson has been up to some pretty extraordinary tasks.

IBM’s Watson supercomputer. Image source: Getty Images.

Teaming up with AT&T

In the past six years, Watson has become much more than a question-answering machine. Now with the supercomputer living in the cloud, you can analyze and interpret all of your data, including unstructured text, images, audio, and video. On the business side of things, the demand for near real-time operations data is fueling the IoT explosion. However, the key for business customers isn’t just collecting data from their connected assets, but extracting meaningful insights from it and then making near real-time decisions. IBM recently unveiled a new way for companies to unlock more value from their data in a simpler way — by using AT&T’s IoT solutions with IBM Cloud.

The new AT&T IoT analytics capability is a pilot collaboration between the two companies, which will help AT&T’s enterprise customers transform their industrial IoT data into analytic insights so they can improve business operations. According to IBM, with this service, both companies plan to offer the telecom giant’s customers insights into their data by tapping into:

• AT&T M2X, Flow Designer, Control Center , and other IoT solutions that allow AT&T’s enterprise customers to effectively manage and monitor devices, as well as collect, manage, and store data.
• IBM Watson IoT portfolio for connecting, building, launching, and managing IoT apps and devices, including analytics capabilities such as predictive maintenance that provides insights to improve asset performance.
• IBM Watson Data Platform — the industry's fastest data ingestion engine with cognitive-powered decision making. The IBM Watson Data Platform uncovers critical business insights by providing a collaborative environment where valuable data from machines and devices can be combined with multiple sources of data, including a customer’s own sales and inventory data and publicly available information, such as weather and road conditions.
• IBM Machine Learning Service, as part of Watson Data Platform on IBM Cloud, enabling AT&T’s enterprise customers to employ machine learning from IBM Watson.  

The advantage for customers of this new service is that they can utilize their own generated IoT data to predict maintenance and optimization for their machines. If an oil and gas company wants to detect anomalous events within its well, for example, it can use AT&T’s network and the IBM Watson Data Platform to ingest hundreds of wells. This could then create the models needed with machine-learning libraries and open-source technology to help predict failures or machine malfunctions. Simply put, the company could detect anomalies in less time with more accuracy.

“We have more than 30 million connected devices on our network today and that number continues to grow — primarily driven by enterprise adoption,” said president of IoT solutions at AT&T, Chris Penrose, in a press release from AT&T. “Businesses are eager for actionable data insights from their connected devices that help improve their processes and take the guesswork out of decision making. Integrating the IBM Watson Data Platform into our IoT capabilities will be huge for our enterprise customers.” 

According to general manager of telecommunications, media, & entertainment at IBM, Steve Canepa, the need for more tools and services that will unlock the value in the IoT data being generated is part of the tremendous growth in IoT adoption.

“As part of our continued collaboration to drive innovation, IBM is working with AT&T to combine our strengths and expertise to combine analytics solutions on the IBM Cloud that will enable AT&T’s enterprise customers to utilize their complex data in a meaningful way and deliver insights that can help accelerate their business transformation,” Canepa said.

Looking to the future

In another five years or so, as the technology behind the AI-fueled Watson develops, the supercomputer could be helping a doctor diagnose a patient’s symptoms while also helping a CEO calculate whether or not to buy out a competitor.

Another incredible example of Watson’s AI is how office supply company Staples is making customer service easy with Watson Conversation. Staples has turned its Easy Button icon into an app that’s powered by Watson. With the app, customers are able to text, talk, or send a photo of what they need and the app will order it for them. Over time, the Easy Button system learns and remembers common phrases, and with every action, it becomes more intuitive. It’s likely that other companies will get on board with this technology.

Of course, Watson could be missing out if it doesn’t wrap its intelligent mind around the self-driving car boom. According to an article from Computerworld written about the World of Watson conference last October, Sebastian Thrun, co-founder of online education company Udacity, said that AI systems like Watson will make automobiles better drivers than people.

“When a self-driving car makes a mistake, it will learn from it and will never make that mistake again,” said Thrun. “All of the other self-driving cars also learn from that mistake. All other self-driving cars will learn that as soon as they are born.”

According to Thrun, in a matter of time, Watson will outpace the human mind.

Currently, Watson is incorporated into at least 17 different industries and IBM is working with more than 500 partners to build Watson-cognitive applications, including law, music, retail, image recognition, hotel business, and cooking.

Even though Watson hasn’t been getting the attention that it did when it outsmarted its rivals in a game of Jeopardy! , it might be secretly taking over the world. By the looks of it, it won’t be long before Watson is predicting the future. Is that something you’re ready for?