There is plenty of growing evidence that market leaders are making Artificial Intelligence (AI) a top strategic priority and already seeing results. Most business leaders that have rolled our cognitive solutions expect to continue seeing tangible results, and gain a competitive advantage over the next few decades. The five most valuable companies in the United States by market capitalization (Apple, Alphabet/Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook) focus heavily on AI within their research efforts and business models. The five most valuable companies in the United States by market capitalization (Apple, Alphabet/Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook) focus heavily on AI within their research efforts and business models. A newly published IBM study found that the majority (58%) of early adopters of AI (and the cognitive systems that use AI capabilities) believe that these new technologies are "must haves" to remain competitive within the next few years.

The Mill created a massive real-time data art installation built from the computation analysis of pop music, social media and news media by IBM's Watson. Natural language and musical compositions were assigned emotional values by Watson which we then translated into immersive visualizations that could be navigated by time, emotion and genre. Intricate color coding of the visuals was based on a five color palette, one each for joy, anger, disgust, sadness, and fear. Follow @Millchannel on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram for more updates.

Last week I attended IBM (IBM) World of Watson as both a speaker and an attendee, and today as I sit in my neighborhood Starbucks (SBUX) thinking about everything, all I can say is WOW! This was one of the most interesting, inspiring and amazing events I have ever attended. And we are still in the very early stages of Watson, Cognitive and AI. I invite you to follow me as I learn more and write more about the wonderful world of Watson, all the companies that work with it and how it will change our industries, our businesses and our lives. As a wireless analyst and columnist, I come at this world of Watson from the wireless, telecom, internet and television angle.

People say there's a first for everything. A few weeks ago, I attended my first big tech conference, the IBM Watson Developer's Conference. For many, it may not be a big deal, but it sure was for me. I represented a real organization, got an attendee badge to prove it, and even missed a day of my senior year of high school. AOL #BUILTBYGIRLS, a platform encouraging girls to be builders and creators in our tech-enabled economy, offered me the opportunity to serve as its ambassador.

A recent spate of potent anti-tumor drugs, from ones that target cancers like smart bombs to ones that work with the body's immune system, have excited cancer doctors. But one fact has tempered their enthusiasm; given enough time, most cancers find a way to become resistant to the drugs, rendering them powerless and causing patients to relapse. The danger is that these doctors will have nothing more to throw at the disease. Researchers at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT are hoping to solve that problem by teaming up with IBM Watson Health to find answers that only reams of data can provide. The mission is to sequence the genomes of tumors from thousands of patients who have different kinds of cancer--first when they are diagnosed, then again when they stop responding to drugs that initially worked in controlling their disease.

The utopia of driverless cars may still be out of reach, but General Motors wants to ensure that today's vehicles provide a unique or individual experience. The carmaker has partnered with IBM to develop what GM calls a "cognitive mobility platform" that will deliver personalized content while on the road. The partnership brings together GM's connected vehicle system OnStar with IBM's learning supercomputer Watson in the form of a platform called OnStar Go. According to a press release, OnStar Go is the auto industry's first such cognitive computing platform and will give drivers the opportunity to connect or interact with their favored brands while behind the wheel. Or to put it another way, the platform will make sure the driver makes the most of her or his time in the car.

IBM's Watson IoT is aimed at bringing together artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as machine learning, deep learning, machine reasoning, natural language processing (NLP), and computer vision and applying them to industrial Internet of Things (IoT) applications. The platform collects data, analyzes it, and puts the data into a business context to solve specific problems that include asset performance, facility management, operations, product development, health and safety, and predictive maintenance, among others. One of the big differentiators for Watson IoT is the use of IBM's Blockchain platform for specific IoT applications, where IoT devices can send data to private blockchain ledgers that can be used for shared transactions with tamper-proof security. Rather than collecting, storing, and managing all of your IoT data centrally, the blockchain's distributed replication allows businesses to access and supply IoT data in a decentralized fashion. Centralized silos can be expensive and difficult to manage, especially when applied to a data-hungry and data-sensitive area like IoT.

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Mark 2016 as the year that researchers applied artificial intelligence (AI) to the challenges of cybersecurity. If machines can steer our cars and predict our shopping habits, then why not watch over our networks and servers too? IBM in May 2016 announced Watson for Cyber Security, in which the IT behemoth began teaching its pattern-recognition supercomputer to learn the difference between safe and risky data. That could ease the burden on overworked cybersecurity professionals, IBM hopes. Several universities involved with that project began having students train the system within the past several weeks, explained IBM Watson's Jeb Linton, chief security architect.