IBM Watson And Its Real-World Applications
IBM Watson is a platform that represents a new era of computing based on its ability to interact in natural language, process vast amounts of disparate forms of big data and learn from each interaction. It is able to sift through and understand massive amounts of big data at unprecedented speeds to assist professionals in understanding data quickly and easily, while increasing knowledge and gaining value over time. IBM Watson is not only solution in this space, Digital Reasoning and several other players also have compelling offerings. IBM Watson just happens to have the most name recognition.
Introduction
Cognitive computing systems use computerized models to simulate the human cognition process to find solutions in complex situations where the answers may be ambiguous and uncertain. While the term cognitive computing is often used interchangeably with artificial intelligence (AI), the phrase is closely associated with IBM's cognitive computer system, Watson. Cognitive computing overlaps with AI and involves many of the same underlying technologies to power cognitive applications, including expert systems, neural networks, robotics and virtual reality (VR).
How Cognitive Computing Works
Cognitive computing systems can synthesize data from various information sources, while weighing context and conflicting evidence to suggest the best possible answers. To achieve this, cognitive systems include self-learning technologies that use data mining, pattern recognition and natural language processing (NLP) to mimic the way the human brain works. Using computer systems to solve the types of problems that humans are typically tasked with requires vast amounts of structured and unstructured data, fed to machine learning algorithms. Over time, cognitive systems are able to refine the way they identify patterns and the way they process data to become capable of anticipating new problems and model possible solutions. To achieve those capabilities, cognitive computing systems must have five key attributes, as listed by the Cognitive Computing Consortium.
Key Attributes
Adaptive: Cognitive systems must be flexible enough to learn as information changes and as goals evolve. The systems must be able to digest dynamic data in real time and make adjustments as the data and environment change.
Interactive: Human-computer interaction (HCI) is a critical component in cognitive systems. Users must be able to interact with cognitive machines and define their needs as those needs change. The technologies must also be able to interact with other processors, devices and cloud platforms.
Iterative and stateful: Cognitive computing technologies can also identify problems by asking questions or pulling in additional data if a stated problem is vague or incomplete. The systems do this by maintaining information about similar situations that have previously occurred.
Contextual: Understanding context is critical in thought processes, and so cognitive systems must also understand, identify and mine contextual data, such as syntax, time, location, domain, requirements, a specific user's profile, tasks or goals. They may draw on multiple sources of information, including structured and unstructured data and visual, auditory or sensor data.
Cognitive Computing vs AI
Cognitive computing is often used interchangeably with AI – the umbrella term for technologies that rely on data to make decisions. But there are nuances between the two terms, which can be found within their purposes and applications. AI technologies include – but aren't limited to – machine learning, neural networks, NLP and deep learning. With AI systems, data is fed into the algorithm over a long period of time so that the systems learn variables and can predict outcomes. Applications based on AI include intelligent assistants, such as Amazon's Alexa or Apple's Siri, and driverless cars are based on AI.
The term cognitive computing is typically used to describe AI systems that aim to simulate human thought. Human cognition involves real-time analysis of environment, context and intent, among many other variables that inform a person's ability to solve problems. A number of AI technologies are required for a computer system to build cognitive models that mimic human thought processes, including machine learning, deep learning, neural networks, NLP and sentiment analysis. In general, cognitive computing is used to assist humans in their decision-making process. Some examples of cognitive computing applications include supporting medical doctors in their treatment of disease. IBM Watson for Oncology, for example, has been used at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to provide oncologists with evidence-based treatment options for cancer patients. When medical staff input questions, Watson generates a list of hypotheses and offers treatment options for doctors to consider.
Where AI relies on algorithms to solve a problem or to identify patterns hidden in data, cognitive computing systems have the loftier goal of creating algorithms that mimic the human brain's reasoning process to solve an array of problems as the data and the problems change.
What Is IBM Watson?
Watson is a cognitive system that sifts through massive libraries of data to discover insights that can help its users answer simple to the most complex of questions. Watson understands the nuances of human language. It is able to bring back relevant answers in context of the question. It also gets smarter, learning from each interaction with its users, and each piece of data it ingests. Watson is not a ‘search engine’ or deep learning that requires data scientists to interpret results. It does much more. Watson can “think” or “reason” in a way very similar to the human brain. It processes information, draws conclusions, and learns from its experiences. Watson does not use predefined rules and structured queries to uncover answers, it instead generates hypotheses based on a wide variety of potentially relevant information and connections. Answers are expressed as recommendations along with confidence rankings. Unlike a traditional analytic tool, the more data it receives the more it can learn and provide higher quality insights.
IBM Watson Solutions
Watson Explorer Platform: the core expandable cognitive indexing and natural language search framework.
Watson Developer Cloud: a collection of Watson REST APIs that can be used in apps.
Watson Industry Solutions: IoT, Marketing, Supply Chain, Health, Education, Financial Services, Regulatory Compliance, Surveillance, Banking, Insurance and many more.
Integrating IBM Watson Into Apps
After information is processed with the cognitive framework, addition output destinations and integration with analytics applications is commonly done to vastly improve decision making context in apps the business already uses. Here’s an example of a Watson Explorer unified information application. Clients can use this powerful, easy-to-deploy application framework to create apps to support specific activities such as customer care, research, marketing, sales and more. Virtually any activity that requires information can be enhanced by a Watson Explorer unified information app. The benefits of cognitive apps include the powerful combination of structured and unstructured information for contextually relevant insights. The flexible architecture based on search indices is adaptable and less “brittle” than structured approaches. Also integrated cognitive services within business applications help scale human expertise.
IBM Watson Applications
A. HealthCare & Medical
Welltok Inc. , based in Denver, is another business that has created a product line with an add-on plug-in powered by Watson. Its CafeWell Concierge service is an app that is like a health concierge in your back pocket. A new mom can register through her health provider under an anonymous user name and get awarded for healthy behavior, such as lower healthcare premiums, and receive tips about exercise and nutrition. A business executive could land in Austin airport and find restaurant and menu options that fit her diabetic restrictions. Though Welltok is available to certain health plan participants under providers like Aetna, she can invite her friends who are not under the health plan to participate with her.
The medical field is the sector that is likely being impacted the most by Watson. For starters, Watson has taken residence at three of the top cancers hospitals in the US – Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and the Mayo Clinic – where it helps with cancer research and patient care. In terms of cancer research, Watson is speeding up DNA analysis in cancer patients to help make their treatment more effective.
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has tapped IBM Watson in a mission to eradicate cancer. MD Anderson's Oncology Expert Advisor is powered by the Watson cognitive computing system and is designed to integrate the knowledge of MD Anderson's clinicians and researchers. Starting with leukemia, the Oncology Expert Advisor will help clinicians develop, observe and fine-tune treatments for patients.
The Watson technology will play a key role in streamlining and standardizing the longitudinal collection, ingestion and integration of patients' medical and clinical history, laboratory data and research data into MD Anderson's centralized patient data warehouse, and then link it and make it available for deep analyses by advanced analytics.
Mayo Clinic is leveraging Watson in a proof of concept to more quickly and efficiently match patients with appropriate clinical trials. At any given time, Mayo Clinic conducts more than 8, 000 human studies. But many clinical trials, both at Mayo Clinic and elsewhere, aren't completed because they lack sufficient enrollment. IBM and Mayo Clinic are expanding Watson's corpus of knowledge to include all clinical trials at Mayo Clinic and in public databases such as ClinicalTrials. gov. They are also training it to analyze patient records and clinical trial criteria to determine appropriate matches for patients.
Johnson & Johnson is teaching Watson to read and understand scientific papers that detail clinical trial outcomes used to develop and evaluate medications and other treatments. With this knowledge, Watson Discovery Advisor can help scientists identify genetic profiles that respond to drug samples without any adverse side effects. In the past, comparative effectiveness studies have been performed manually, requiring three people to spend an average of 10 months just to collect the data and prepare them for use before they can start analyzing. In this study, the Johnson & Johnson team hopes to teach Watson to quickly synthesize the information directly from the medical literature, allowing them to start asking questions about the data immediately.
Watson's first prominent application was in the field of health, with its first commercial use case with WellPoint in Aug. 2011. Watson helps reduce the time for treatment authorization and provides relevant information to allow doctors to begin treatment sooner. In March 2012, Watson began partnering with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York to provide oncologists with the growing amount of health data and research around the world.
MD Buyline Inc. , which has provided hospitals with evidence-based information for purchase decisions for the last 30 years, is now developing what it calls the Hippocrates Procurement Advisor powered by IBM Watson, to give medical equipment buyers access to cross-referenced recommendations, device research and "semi-automated" medical device reports.
Bumrungrad International Hospital in Thailand has recruited Watson to improve the quality of cancer care at is medical center in Bangkok and case evaluation at referral offices in 16 countries on four continents. Bumrungrad has made a five-year commitment to using IBM Watson for Oncology, developed with Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK). The system will help doctors use medical evidence, published research, the extensive clinical expertise of MSK and each patient's profile to plan the most effective treatments for cancer patients. For physicians, Watson is helping with diagnoses. A dermatology app called schEMA allows doctors to input patient data and, using natural-language processing (NLP), helps identify potential symptoms and treatments. Additionally, Watson uses vision recognition to help doctors read scans such as X-rays and MRIs to better narrow the focus on a potential ailment.
LifeLearn, which specializes in mobile solutions for the animal health industry, is working with Watson to transform how veterinarians access and interpret structured and unstructured information. Its Watson-powered mobile app, Sofie, crowd sources data from content providers such as the American Animal Hospital Association and Western Veterinary Conference, as well as industry-leading practices such as The Animal Medical Center in New York City and the Ontario Veterinary Group and Associate Veterinary Clinics. Veterinarians using the app can ask Sofie a natural-language question as they would ask another colleague in the room. Sofie will then scan hundreds of thousands of pages of medical resources in seconds to return relevant, evidence-based treatment options tailored to a specific patient.
B. Finance & Banking
In the financial sector, Watson use is typically geared toward its question and answer capabilities. By not only answering questions, but also analyzing them as well, Watson can help give financial guidance and help manage financial risk. USAA, a financial services firm dedicated to those who serve or have served in the military, has turned to IBM's Watson Engagement Advisor in a pilot program to help military men and women transition to civilian life. According to the U. S. Bureau of Labour Statistics, about 155, 000 active military members transition to civilian life each year. This process can raise many questions, like "Can I be in the reserve and collect veteran's compensation benefits?" or "How do I make the most of the Post-9/11 GI Bill?" Watson has analysed and understands more than 3, 000 documents on topics exclusive to military transitions, allowing members to ask it questions and receive answers specific to their needs. ANZ Global Wealth, the private banking arm of Australia and New Zealand Global Banking Group, has given more than 400 financial planners access to the Watson Engagement Advisor to help them deliver an improved advice process, aiming to reduce the time it takes for customers to receive a statement of financial advice from weeks to a single session. For now, Watson focuses on helping financial planners in the areas of insurance and protection, but ANZ plans to expand it to cover the full wealth strategy, including superannuation and investments. Similarly, DBS bank in Singapore uses Watson to ensure the proper advice and experience for customers of its wealth management business.
The Royal Bank of Scotland enlisted the help of IBM Watson to create its own digital assistant, able to answer over 5, 000 customer questions a day. When developing Cora - its intelligent agent - RBS analyses customer data to find out the most commonly asked questions. It is also trained to know over 200 customer intents and has over 1, 000 responses too. Supported by IBM Watson, RBS is able to teach Cora how customers ask questions and what the most appropriate response is. Cora also knows when to hand over to a human agent if a query is too complicated.
IBM also says Watson can assist traders with "up-to-the -minute" financial, economic, product and client data for more personalized recommendations.
C. Travel
Terry Jones, founder of Travelocity and founding chairman of Kayak. com, knows a little bit about the online travel industry. His newest project, WayBlazer, is the first start-up powered by Watson. WayBlazer is a travel concierge that lets customers ask natural language questions. WayBlazer links places, offers and preferences with social, cultural and economic data to recommend targeted travel insights and commerce offers. "WayBlazer makes sense of the information overload and presents it to consumers as a person travel concierge, " Jones says. "Travel suppliers from destinations and hotels to airlines and rental sites can use WayBlazer to provide a one-stop solution with personalized recommendations, accelerating the pace and frequency of online bookings. "
D. Retail & HomeBuying
Red Ant, a specialist in enterprise mobile apps for retailers, has based its Sell Smart app on Watson's cognitive computing technology. The mobile app serves a retail sales trainer that lets employees identify individual customers' buying preferences by analyzing demographics, purchase history and wish lists, as well as product information, local pricing, customer reviews and tech specs. Its corpus of knowledge includes product information, copybooks, manuals, customer reviews and more. Employees can use voice or text in a simple question-and-answer interface to access these insights. Kent Deverell, co-founder and CEO of Fluid Inc. , which is using Watson's development platform in cloud computing, says his company, with the help of Watson, can help retailers react with consumers "in a way they have never before. " Deverell said a large majority of shoppers don't become buyers because they lack confidence in their selection without the advice of a great sales associate. Companies like The North Face will use Fluid's service, FluidXPS, that is powered by Watson. An online shopper will be able to ask a question on the North Face website, such as, "What do I need for a 14-day hiking trip?" And through a dialogue, like with an expert personal shopper, Deverell says its system will ask clarifying questions and educate a shopper effectively to find the necessary items.
Besides retail and digital life applications of Watson, High said a third consumer application for Watson is customer service. For a home buyer, Watson can help understand a location, provide information about mortgage rates, or "the kinds of questions you have that go well beyond the product, " High said. Watson could help you with questions like, "Do I have enough income?" and other ways a business could help personalize their "engagement scenario" with a customer, High said.
E. Cyber-Security
Spark Cognition is the first "cognitive security analytics" company. It has created a Cognitive Security Insights (CSI) app with Watson to process data to deliver advanced cyber threat defense. Working with IBM, Spark Cognition has trained Watson on a security-focused corpus that includes product manuals, threat research, configuration best practices and similar relevant content. The aim is to allow the Watson-powered CSI app to think like a security expert. One of Spark Cognition’s early adopter clients, ExamSoft, uses CSI to reduce the costs associated with false positives, incorporate automated learning systems in the organization that retain critical knowledge and enable intelligent detection and remediation.
F. Cooking
While Watson is learning about the world as it is, its next step is creativity. Florian Pinel, a senior software engineer with IBM, is working on an application that tries to create novel and tasty recipes built around a knowledge base of food. Watson already knows the molecular makeup of foods and its nutrition. Pinel is creating an application that allows a user to choose a type of cuisine, such as Thai or vegetarian, and other characteristics, such as manner of cooking (like sautéed), and then an algorithm can walk you through possible ingredients, proportions and more. Watson, for example, can create trillions of combinations of ingredients based on your preferences, like novelty, aroma and pairing abilities. Watson, for example, knows that bay leaf is a common ingredient in Thai cuisine, Pinel explained.
G. Legal
When it comes to the law, most of us likely have more questions than answers on any topic. However, start-ups such as ROSS Intelligence Inc. are using Watson to make it easier to get answers to your burning legal questions. According to ROSS's website, users can ask questions in plain English and the app uses NLP to understand the questions and then sifts through the entirety of a database to return a cited answer with relevant legislation. ROSS also monitors potential changes to relevant laws and alerts you when changes occur. Singapore's Inland Revenue Authority is another organization using Watson to help answer legal questions, deploying Watson to field questions about tax.
H. Other Minor Applications
Autodesk, the US 3D design software corporation, has implemented IBM Watson technology into their customer service since 2016 in the form of intelligent chatbot, Ava, who can swiftly and eloquently respond to all manners of customer queries. The bot now handles over 150, 000 customer contacts every month and caused customer response times to speed up by 99%. In 2018, the company announced their intention to integrate Watson into the procurement process as well. They will be developing Autodesk Contract Explorer (ACE) in partnership with Watson to create AI which can read and review procurement contracts, which right now is an arduous part of a Contract Manager's role. Global stationary retailer Staples integrated the machine learning capabilities of IBM Watson and its cognitive APIs to create a 'smart' ordering button. Staple's Easy button is placed in an office and will create stationary orders when someone commands it to. For example, customers can say "order more red pens", or use text and email to order. The aim was to reduce the ordering time and complications that can arise when ordering online.
In July 2016, US retailer Macy's announced it's testing 'Macy's On-Call', a new mobile service in which shoppers can ask (in natural language) Watson questions about a store's products, services and facilities. This technology is delivered by Satisfi, a location-based engagement software which accesses Watson from the cloud, providing shop assistance in both English and Spanish. Macy’s chief growth officer, Peter Sachse said: "This program, in partnership with Satisfi and leveraging the power of IBM Watson, will help us explore new ways to engage one-on-one with customers in-store, providing them another level of service right at their fingertips".
Standard Bank uses IBM Watson to speed handling of customer queries, allowing it to identify customers quickly so they can respond in faster time. "The ultimate beneficiaries of the project will be our customers for whom the process-known as 'cognitive computing' will undoubtedly bring many benefits as we continue to identify innovative ways of doing business and build a bank for the future, ” said Vuyo Mpako, head, innovation and channel design, Standard Bank.
