Machine learning heats up the contest for human talent

"Graduates at IBM are coming into roles where you provide services to a range of different industries as opposed to just working in one," she says. "From a career perspective, they can move across different industries but they also move across different functions. You retain your core expertise but you also get to do different jobs because of the diversity of our clients." IBM works with dozens of Australia's biggest companies using Watson to drive machine learning and data analysis within business, and has the advantage of being able to supply whole teams of experts as challenges arise. In contrast, even big industry employers often have only a few specialists in key areas.