Has IBM Watson's AI Technology Fallen Victim to Hype?

If you ask IBM about its plans for a given business opportunity--health care, financial services, pharma, even sports coverage--the answer will likely center on Watson, IBM's take on artificial intelligence, or cognitive computing, in IBM parlance. Since beating human champions in Jeopardy six years ago, Watson has been very long on promise and generated untold numbers of headlines. It's unclear as IBM (ibm) chief executive Ginni Rometty has said the company does not break that out in order to protect this crucial but nascent business. Over the past year, critics have voiced skepticism about Watson's real-world prospects especially as AI competitors--from Google (goog) to Microsoft (msft)--have brought their AI software offerings to market. The perception now is that Watson has not met lofty expectations.