Much has been made of the potential for people to lose their jobs to machines but, according to a senior tech executive, it's all about having employees use artificial intelligence themselves. "AI is not going to replace managers but managers that use AI will replace those that do not," Rob Thomas, senior vice president of IBM's cloud and data platform, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Monday. "This really is about giving our employees, our executives, superpowers … One of the biggest things we saw take off with the pandemic was virtual assistants, so how do you care for employees, how do you care for customers in a distributed world and that's why we've seen hundreds of different organizations going live with things like Watson Assistant," Thomas added, referring to the company's AI customer service software. Technology is set to have a significant effect on employees. Machines and automation are set to eliminate 85 million jobs by 2025, according to the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2020, published in October, although overall WEF expects 97 million new jobs to be created.

New Delhi: The ability and efficacy to harness vast amounts of data and drawing descriptive and predictive analysis, without negating the power of human intelligence, would provide the winning edge in the use of artificial intelligence (AI), a senior IBM executive said on Wednesday. Speaking at a RAISE 2020 event, IBM India and South Asia Managing Director Sandip Patel said the world is at a critical inflection point and there will be use of AI at scale, given the extreme digital acceleration seen amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He noted that several sectors across retail, finance, healthcare and e-commerce are already deploying AI to increase efficiency and productivity, enhance customer service, and build a stronger security cover. "These digital transformation journeys have further accelerated in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the pace of digital acceleration compressed over a span of 8-10 months is something that would have actually taken years to happen," he said.

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.

NEW DELHI: When it comes to delivering intelligent Cloud experience, robust artificial intelligence (AI)-driven solutions are going to decide who is better equipped to provide enterprises with extended capabilities, says a key IBM executive. Among all future technologies, AI has been hailed as the next big thing and is steadily becoming the driving force behind tech innovations and existing product lines across industries -- going further from just being part of Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled home appliances and smartphones. Market research firm Tractica forecasts that the revenue generated from the direct and indirect application of AI software will grow from $1.38 billion in 2016 to $59.75 billion by 2025. According to IDC, the cognitive systems and AI market (including hardware and services) will grow to $47 billion in 2020. To make sense of data on Cloud, data miners need to decode and align it in order to deliver enhanced experiences to customers and they can't do this mammoth task alone.

Watson, can you grow into a multibillion-dollar business and become the engine of IBM's resurgence? IBM is betting its future that the answer is yes. Its campaign to commercialize Watson, the company's version of artificial intelligence technology, stands out, even during the current A.I. frenzy in the tech industry. IBM has invested billions of dollars in its Watson business unit, created at the start of 2014, which now employs an estimated 10,000 workers. Its big-ticket marketing push includes clever television ads that feature Watson trading quips with famous people like Serena Williams and Bob Dylan.

Watson, can you grow into a multibillion-dollar business and become the engine of IBM's resurgence? IBM is betting its future that the answer is yes. Its campaign to commercialize Watson, the company's version of artificial intelligence technology, stands out, even during the current A.I. frenzy in the tech industry. IBM has invested billions of dollars in its Watson business unit, created at the start of 2014, which now employs an estimated 10,000 workers. Its big-ticket marketing push includes clever television ads that feature Watson trading quips with famous people like Serena Williams and Bob Dylan. And Watson, after a slow start, has shown its mettle by assisting in daunting tasks like diagnosing cancer.

Watson, can you grow into a multibillion-dollar business and become the engine of IBM's resurgence? IBM is betting its future that the answer is yes. Its campaign to commercialize Watson, the company's version of artificial intelligence technology, stands out, even during the current A.I. frenzy in the tech industry. IBM has invested billions of dollars in its Watson business unit, created at the start of 2014, which now employs an estimated 10,000 workers. Its big-ticket marketing push includes clever television ads that feature Watson trading quips with famous people like Serena Williams and Bob Dylan.