An executive's guide to cognitive computing

Sethi describes a cognitive analytics application in a health care setting: Imagine you walk into the emergency room with red eyes and a fever. Cognitive systems in a triage room can analyze your vitals, correlate them with your medical and travel histories, and predict with accuracy whether you have the common flu, the Zika virus or some other illness. As this health care example illustrates, cognitive technologies are able to understand the world around us, read signs and understand what's happening – but in a highly focused context to complete a narrow but important task. "The goal of many cognitive systems is to provide assistance to humans without human assistance," says Schabenberger. "But it is important to think about who is being assisted by automated systems." In the health care example above, the doctor and nurse are being assisted as much as the patient.