IBM pitched Watson as a revolution in cancer care. It's nowhere close

Breathlessly promoting its signature brand -- Watson -- IBM sought to capture the world's imagination, and it quickly zeroed in on a high-profile target: cancer. But three years after IBM began selling Watson to recommend the best cancer treatments to doctors around the world, a STAT investigation has found that the supercomputer isn't living up to the lofty expectations IBM created for it. It is still struggling with the basic step of learning about different forms of cancer. Only a few dozen hospitals have adopted the system, which is a long way from IBM's goal of establishing dominance in a multibillion-dollar market. And at foreign hospitals, physicians complained its advice is biased toward American patients and methods of care. STAT examined Watson for Oncology's use, marketing, and performance in hospitals across the world, from South Korea to Slovakia to South Florida. Reporters interviewed dozens of doctors, IBM executives, artificial intelligence experts, and others familiar with the system's underlying technology and rollout. The interviews suggest that IBM, in its rush to bolster flagging revenue, unleashed a product without fully assessing the challenges of deploying it in hospitals globally. While it has emphatically marketed Watson for cancer care, IBM hasn't published any scientific papers demonstrating how the technology affects physicians and patients. As a result, its flaws are getting exposed on the front lines of care by doctors and researchers who say that the system, while promising in some respects, remains undeveloped. "Watson for Oncology is in their toddler stage, and we have to wait and actively engage, hopefully to help them grow healthy," said Dr. Taewoo Kang, a South Korean cancer specialist who has used the product. At its heart, Watson for Oncology uses the cloud-based supercomputer to digest massive amounts of data -- from doctor's notes to medical studies to clinical guidelines. But its treatment recommendations are not based on its own insights from these data.