IBM Sells Watson Health: Running Before Walking?

Summary Bullets:

Principal Analyst, Advanced Analytics

• IBM leveraged Deep Blue, a supercomputer, to victory over chess champion Gary Kasparov and Watson’s subsequent victory over Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings to highlight the promise of AI.

• IBM hoped to expand Watson beyond game playing to solving problems that had proven intractable to business managers. Seeking a challenge, IBM adapted Watson to diagnose and treat cancer.

IBM’s experience developing the platform for Jeopardy gave the company hope that it could broaden Watson’s capabilities. Key to the success of Watson’s victory at Jeopardy was the development of DeepQA, a specialized software architecture that, according to IBM, “generates a wide range of possibilities and for each [query] develops a level of confidence by gathering, analyzing, and assessing evidence.”