This EDGEtalks speaker series will explore the growing role that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will have on the way that businesses manage their operations. It will endeavour to separate the recent AI hype from reality and provide an understanding of the ways that AI will help businesses better serve customers while operating more efficiently. The keynote address will be delivered by Mike Rhodin, former IBM SVP and founder of IBM's Watson Group. Mr Rhodin's 33-year career at IBM was infused with a passion for helping clients extract value from technology, improving business performance and simplifying the way people work. Mr. Rhodin's keynote will provide insight on the ways that Artificial Intelligence and Automation are reshaping operations, augmenting human capacity and changing the future of work.

Mike Rhodin is senior vice president of IBM Watson. DETROIT -- IBM Watson initially won fame as the artificially intelligent computer system that won $1 million for whipping former Jeopardy! Since then, under the leadership of 1984 University of Michigan graduate Mike Rhodin, Watson has morphed into a muscular big business with lots of tentacles and more than 2,000 employees. Earlier this month in Ann Arbor, I interviewed Rhodin, the New York-based senior vice president of IBM Watson who was in town to speak with two groups of University of Michigan business students and budding entrepreneurs. Rhodin smiled when I asked the sci-fi question he hears often: When will machines turn on humans and take over the world?

As artificial intelligence gains a foothold in the mainstream of entrepreneurship, executives at IBM's Watson division predict cognitive computing technology will transform a variety of fields. Watson offers a set of tools to developers seeking to create AI-infused products. Roughly 360 companies, most of them startups, use Watson APIs and about 100 of those companies have created products that are already on the market. "It's a rapidly growing ecosystem and it's a rich set of tools," says Watson Senior Vice President Michael Rhodin. Watson Chief Technical Officer Rob High says Watson's products that provide AI capabilities to businesses are not aimed at replacing the work of humans, but at enhancing and augmenting what humans can do.