Presenting Watson as a Service
February 9, 2017
Every now and then, interest in Watson re-emerges. Forbes published a long-read recently entitled How IBM Is Building A Business Around Watson. After gaining press during Watson’s victorious Jeopardy face-off with Ken Jennings, Watson’s first commercial applications took off. IBM sold it to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Wellpoint to design an advisory system for its medical staff. Other medical institutions have purchased it since then. The author asserts,
Still, the potentially is undeniable. Think about how much more effective an ordinary doctor can be with Watson as an assistant. First, even before the patient enters the room, it can analyze their personal medical history, which often runs to hundreds of pages. Then, it can compare the case history with the 700,000 academic papers published every year as well as potentially millions of other patient records. All of this is, of course, beyond the capabilities of human doctors, who typically only get a few minutes to prepare for each examination. So being able to consult with Watson will be enormously helpful.
The real value is offering Watson as a service by providing its API, so that developers in organizations can develop their own applications using its technology. Over 550 partners are utilizing this currently for everything from retail to geolocation to travel agencies. Certainly, with all the hype Watson receives, we can only expect usage to grow.
Megan Feil, February 9, 2017
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
