IBM Watson: The Big Bet On IoT And AI

The Internet of Things is about connections and the massive amounts of data that result from those connections. Trouble is, most of the resulting data is not tapped, and that's where IBM and its AI mega-machine Watson come in. During a break in the IBM Genius of Things summit in Boston this week, I sat down with Harriet Green, general manager of Watson IoT and customer engagement and education at IBM, to discuss IBM's IoT and AI strategy. Green sees a market need as an opportunity, noting that 80% of the world's data is not yet searchable. "We've made a big bet ($3 billion) on IoT and bringing AI capabilities to IoT," says Green. "We're seeing this huge drive to connect the world's devices to, in our case, the IBM cloud, the IoT platform. People are understanding that if you connect things to things and things to people, the data flows and the opportunities are very real. "Secondly, we're seeing that the software application to gather this data and apply analytics to it are becoming deeper and richer.