IBM VP Talks Fighting Cancer, Parking Tickets With Watson

For this week's edition of Fast Forward, I'm talking to Mark Simpson, VP of Offer Management and Strategy for IBM Watson Marketing.

Fast Forward Bug Art Nosotros'll be discussing Watson, of grade, but also artificial intelligence, machine learning, and—virtually importantly—how businesses use these tools to ameliorate sympathize their customers, partners, and how they operate their businesses. Read or watch our full discussion beneath.

Dan Costa: A lot of people accept seen the IBM Watson commercials on TV, and they know that Bob Dylan had something to practise with this in some vague way, but how would y'all define Watson equally a product?

Mark Simpson: Watson's a cognitive calculating product, which can learn like humans. It learns, it understands, it reasons in the same mode that humans do and tin can exist taught over fourth dimension. Then that computing tin exist applied into many different areas ... Essentially it is a trusted advisor that we can requite to humans that can take in masses of data and assist them in the decisions that they make, augmenting their intelligence.

I think that's the phrase that has stuck with a diverseness of people. Information technology'south not necessarily bogus intelligence, it'due south augmented intelligence. It works with humans to really help them practise things that they wouldn't be able to do with the brains that God gave us.

Yes, that'south the key differentiator that we use within IBM. A lot of companies take artificial intelligence and what we're non trying to do with augmented intelligence is... only replicate man intelligence or replace man intelligence. We're actually trying to give that human a mode to make improve decisions through having more information. And then really having an advisor sitting by their side that tin can help them in making smarter decisions or faster decisions depending on their situation.

Then Watson itself, equally yous mentioned, it does need to be taught to perform in a diversity of these different environments. How does that process work?

Yeah, every bit yous would teach a human, really. You point Watson in the right direction and y'all give it information and information that it needs to ingest to be able to brand, to be able to learn and sympathise and reason in the ways that it needs to do. It continually learns, then Watson initially will make some wrong decisions too and information technology needs guiding in the right areas, but that's all part of the learning process. So really, equally a human would learn, you think of it in the same fashion for Watson.

Watson

Yous specialize in the marketing field. How is Watson applied to the field of marketing?

Watson can be applied or I see Watson applied in iii big ways. Firstly, you lot tin can think of Watson as a set of computing APIs, which really anybody can have access to. And then we run into customers that will use those APIs for whatever number of reasons, whether that's looking at reaching customers in a different way, so if you take the case perhaps of 1-800-Flowers, who accept now a concierge service on their website called Gwyn who would ...ask you questions about what yous're looking for. Say yous're looking for a nowadays, a gift for your mother. [Watson tech will enquire yous] what the occasion is or about what your mother's interested in. It will so commencement giving suggestions as to the right gifts to give your female parent.

You can think of Watson in sort of very broad terms. The second fashion of thinking virtually information technology is what we're trying to do with embedding Watson into our marketing platforms. We think of that really in how tin we salve marketers time and how tin can we make marketers brand smarter decisions.

Thirdly, yous could wait at Watson within the marketing platforms as a completely different way to collaborate with our marketing platform. So Watson, when we are embedding Watson equally an assistant to the marketer, it tin can analyze and monitor campaigns on an ongoing ground. You tin ask Watson questions near those campaigns and how those campaigns compare to each other in order that you tin make different and the right decisions in a faster way to take activity on what you lot're seeing happen with the campaigns that yous're running.

In this world of big data, where we are collecting so much information about our businesses and about our customers, that information overload seems like it's probably the biggest problem that marketers have. You see them reaching for new dashboards all the fourth dimension to endeavor and make sense of all the information that's coming in, but dashboards aren't enough. Dashboards a lot of times aren't dynamic plenty to actually make sense of those oceans of data.

You lot're absolutely right, and I call up as well if yous layer onto that 80 percent of the earth'southward information near customers and data generally is unstructured and how a human tin can get its head around unstructured data at that sort of scale and that sort of quantity is very hard to imagine. Y'all can call back of information technology beyond many industries and marketing what people are saying on social media and in healthcare or doctors' notes that are being written and many other applications in other industries, existence able to take in that unstructured data, beingness able to make sense of that unstructured data just gives individuals, and in this case marketers, the trusted advisor they need to start making much smarter decisions.

IBM Watson

Can you give the states, you mentioned 1-800-Flowers, can yous requite us other examples of how Watson's being used to sort of make sense of these datasets?

Then we accept partnered with Staples with their Like shooting fish in a barrel Buttons. People have seen the Easy Button where you lot simply press the button to society more pencils or whatever y'all're curt of at the fourth dimension. Watson is partnered with Staples to help enable and help power that, so whether you're curt on supplies and you press the Easy Button or whether yous go into an app on your phone or whether y'all employ Facebook Messenger or Slackbots or what have you to club new supplies through Staples, Watson will brand sense of what you're doing and it volition enable that.

It tin as well kickoff predicting your needs. Then there'southward different applications. We've also worked very closely with North Face who again accept a like assistant to Gwyn with 1-800-Flowers where you tin talk to the Due north Confront website through your phone or on your estimator. You lot can also type and interact with it, just you can tell the Northward Face about your trip. Say you're, I don't know, hiking in the Himalayas in September and the North Face tin can become off and look upwards the location, detect out the conditions there and information technology can come back and brand recommendations around the gear that you're going to demand to have a more pleasant trip.

There'southward an interesting transition that happens in that location. The Due north Face is a great example considering in some means it's a conversational interface that'due south powered with AI that's very natural where you lot're merely giving it a little bit of information, but then there'southward this massive information analytics back end where it takes this unstructured data and and so turns information technology around and makes actionable recommendations for you.

Yeah. Look, understanding human language is non an piece of cake thing, which is kind of the first stage when you're interacting with it, even through voice communication or text or however. And so you take the masses of information behind it looking up location and weather atmospheric condition and matching that confronting production categories and skews and those sorts of things. It'south a actually exciting way of shopping compared to going onto a website and clicking on category pages and looking through lists and trying to apply filters. It'south a much more enjoyable way of shopping.

Information technology seems to me that brings us to that concept of cerebral commerce where you've got a cognitive computer that's enabling commerce transactions up and downwardly the front.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, and as I say, Staples is a cracking example of that, trying to predict when somebody is getting short of supplies based on the history of consumption and enabling that ordering process to happen however someone needs and wherever they are and accept that sort of more immediate and just-in-fourth dimension sort of fulfillment is, it is changing commerce significantly, yes.

How hard is it for a company to go started with Watson? These are pretty sophisticated concepts. You can imagine Staples has got a team of people working on this. IBM is, patently, a very large company. How hard is it for a retailer to spin this up?

If y'all look across not only retail as well, it'southward attainable to anyone, just there are obviously certain skills that you demand to exist able to develop products around. The Watson APIs are open up to anybody. We've seen teenagers using it to build some really cool apps like fighting parking tickets [up] to very large enterprises using information technology to augment and sometimes supplant their own AI. Actually there'due south a huge scale of use cases there.

How can Watson help you fight a parking ticket?

It'due south a fantastic way of looking at the parking ticket and looking at all the parameters around it and how to mayhap fight that parking ticket and how you're interacting back to that particular authority. As I say, developed by teenagers, admittedly phenomenal. The success rates likewise are much higher than they are if you use humans to do it.

Stand in line and go to the courthouse.

Exactly right.

Very good. I call back another key thing is the ability to make sense of unstructured information, like once you've got a structured dataset it's relatively easy to practise some analysis and be able to do some visualizations and and so along, but Watson's ability to make sense of unstructured information is one of the things I think that sets it apart.

Yep, absolutely. In marketing, if you look at a couple of the central trends that are happening in marketing at the moment, 1 is there's an explosion of data. I think we're projected to have nearly 20 times the amount of data by 2022, which is only two and a half years away. That'south a huge corporeality more data, but as you lot say, the shape of that data is changing as customers starting time revealing themselves less, they're actively going out a way to give brands less of their data. Technology has sort of avant-garde to enable that also.

A lot more than of that data is really well-nigh behavior and trying to extract intent from individuals' behavior. A lot of that data is completely unstructured so I call up the older sort of CRM fashion of marketing, while it has its uses is going to become less and less effective and we demand to find new ways to pull out that intent and use that to market to individuals better.

How long volition it be earlier this becomes a proactive process where the tools actually know more about your future needs and your future wants than you lot may even know about yourself?

Yeah, I think in unproblematic cases it has already. At that place are many cases where you tin run across that from my wants equally a marketer, when I become into our analytics platform I want to await at a entrada, I desire to come across if there are any problems with it or anything like that. Watson's actively pushing that to me every bit an private now. I think there are varying degrees of that as you go through different industries and down to a personal level equally well, so it's a hard question to reply, merely I remember that that is already happening at the moment. Really I think expect, we're at the very early stages of cerebral computing. I think the exciting affair is where it can take us when you look forward considering I think the time to come is very hard to sort of fathom all the effects that cerebral computing tin have.

Allow ruminate a little bit on that, that future in merely a second. I think we've got a question from the audience.

We accept a viewer who wants to know what's the latest innovation in the field? What are yous almost excited about?

Yep, that'south a good question because the field is moving then fast all the time and I retrieve you lot're seeing new innovations pop up all over the place. I think that for me some of the work we're doing in cancer and cancer care is really phenomenal. You look at those applications of curing affliction and helping people who are suffering, and I think that those are the elements which I call up you really sort of stand up past this and think this is just a astounding piece of technology and computing that nosotros really need to grasp with both hands. So I remember there are many different uses across many dissimilar industries.

Watson VA Cancer

Tin can you think of an manufacture that'south not going to exist transformed by either cognitive computing or artificial intelligence? Considering we're seeing it being used in marketing applications, nosotros're seeing it being used in transportation applications, commerce applications. It seems like it's 1 of those primal technologies that disrupts everything.

Yeah. I remember the exciting matter is information technology's hard to imagine an industry that won't exist affected. I retrieve if you see the examples that are in the industries at the moment, we've partnered with H&R Block for tax advice and to file your tax returns, taking into account all the changes in revenue enhancement laws over the final 12 months and being able to assist H&R Block'due south tax advisors make ameliorate decisions and save their clients more than money. You motility that to some of the work we're doing maybe with Kone, who produces elevators and escalators and partnering with our net of things business organisation to enable elevators to be fixed really in existent time and before they go incorrect. No 1 likes getting stuck in an lift, right?

It'south really exciting the unlike areas in which information technology can be applied. One of the applications I saw the other day was with Whirlpool where the washing machine with Watson embedded in information technology is able to speak to the tumble dryer to advise the dryer of how long the drying wheel should be, which sounds really small and obvious, but if you think of it, if you get the drying fourth dimension right how much energy that can salvage across the globe, it gets actually exciting. The scale of some of the issues.

Minor efficiencies at scale can brand huge differences.

Exactly. Exactly.

That'southward pretty fascinating and it's always interesting to see these super sophisticated high-end technologies come up downward to that most prosaic level of y'all know what? Y'all're going to spend less money on your electric beak because your washing motorcar is going to be more efficient.

Admittedly, yeah. Your washing machine's going to be more efficient and hopefully you lot'll get better customer service because your washing motorcar can speak to the client service operative and they tin know what's going incorrect and send the right parts with the engineer to ready it.

Cracking call. I want to move to the questions I inquire all my guests, a trivial bit about the time to come. What technological tendency are yous most concerned about? What keeps yous up at night?

Yep, it's hard to proceed me upwards at night. I slumber quite well. I'm a fairly sort of positive person, but I think when you expect at all sort of applied science evolution, I think the matter that nearly concerns me is that the fashion in which it'due south beingness used. The concerns are in when it'southward being used in an unethical way, particularly with the pace of technology advancing. I think it's very important that we do as much as we can to use it ethically and I retrieve that nosotros exercise as much every bit nosotros can also to nullify the unethical uses of these technologies too. I think that's probably if I was looking at one or the biggest overarching area I would pick that area.

Do you think that individual companies should take that on themselves as they're developing technologies and products to think about the consequences of these technologies earlier they bring them to market?

I recollect it's the responsibleness of everyone.

Aye. We've got some other question from the audience.

Is Watson going to be used for medicine or law?

There are already applications of Watson true to medicine. I mentioned cancer, the work we're doing with cancer care and that volition go broader also, so Watson tin can ingest doctors' notes. It can analyze the thousands of medical journals that are produced every single day to sit there as an counselor. Remember, we are advising the physician on decisions that they demand to make. It's not that Watson is going to accept over. It's actually Watson is going to work alongside in medicine. Equally, in law I admittedly can see that Watson volition sit alongside lawyers and those in the legal profession to enable them to brand better decisions, yeah.

Nosotros've seen that consequence of augmentation play out specifically with Watson where Watson can beat a grand chess master.

Yep. Await, that'southward how we foster everything nosotros do. As we say, augmented intelligence rather than artificial.

Since yous're a positive person, on the upside, what are you nigh optimistic most? What are you lot nearly hopeful about?

Look, as y'all can see I get very enthused past AI and information technology's difficult not to be actually enthused past that. I call up there are a few sort of large events that happen through people's lives, and I remember that AI is i of those big events. When you look at the application of AI and when you look at the application of cognitive technologies, the [possibilities are limitless]. It's hard to fathom where it's going to reach to. I remember that thinking about how we can utilise that in a amend mode, how we can help people more by using cognitive calculating is a real heady area. If I look at sort of, I know you always ask well-nigh sort of people'due south favorite apps.

If I wait at sort of the, my life over the final forty or so years, there were some large major events that happened through it, which kind of excite you and you use devices or whatever it is. You lot think when the PC actually sort of becoming mainstream is ane. When the smartphone launched x years ago, only 10 years ago is another and I think AI is another one of those. I look at the work we're doing, I now accept a couple of small kids, the work we're doing with companies like Sesame Street who have had 45 years working with kids and we're building apps to help children's learning. I know it's coming upwards to school holidays, I know my wife will be neat on finding new ways to entertain and educate the kids through schoolhouse holidays, simply the work we're doing at that place I call up is really exciting.

Yep. There is a generation of kids, and I think it's because our generation of the proper age where we're invested in these technologies in a new way and the aforementioned way I was left at dwelling house in front of the Telly, that'south non going to happen with this new generation. They're going to have software tools that aid them learn on every screen that they bear.

Admittedly. Absolutely. I would love to get my eldest away from the TV more and you can already see that shift. You can already see the shift to the iPad and the computer to investigate and to detect out more. I retrieve it's an heady time to come.

If you had one app or product or service that you would have to signal to and say, "This thing changed my life," what would it be?

Yeah. I await at, as I say, there are some major events that have happened I think. You look when I was young, getting our first computer in the house. You look at the smartphone, having everything at your fingertips wherever you are is some other one of those. Equally I say, AI being i where I call up it can really sort of have that to some other level too. I remember through people's lives there are some really major ones where you will continually notice that you get new, sort of new opportunities to rely on something that is really big. I think AI is probably the adjacent revolution.

All correct. If people desire to follow what you're doing, what IBM is doing, what Watson is doing, is upward to these days, how can they find you online?

Aye, so I'grand on LinkedIn. I'm on Twitter. I have a new Twitter business relationship actually. My concluding one I can't get ahold of.

You lost your Twitter account?

I did lose my Twitter account.

For was it bad behavior?

Information technology wasn't bad behavior, no. Nothing to exercise with that. I lost the passwords and the email accost it with, so my new account @SIMMOMJ.

All correct, we'll try to get you some followers to sort of ramp information technology up apace.

Exactly. It would be a help.

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