Watson is not a consumer gadget but the AI platform for real business. Watson solutions are being built, used, and deployed in more than 45 countries and across 20 different industries. Take health care alone -- Watson is in clinical use in the US and 5 other countries, and it has been trained on 8 types of cancers, with plans to add 6 more this year. Watson has now been trained and released to help support physicians in their treatment of breast, lung, colorectal, cervical, ovarian, gastric and prostate cancers. By the end of the year, the technology will be available to support at least 12 cancer types, representing 80 percent of the global incidence of cancer. Beyond oncology, Watson is in use by nearly half of the top 25 life sciences companies, major manufacturers for IoT applications, retail and financial services firms, and partners like GM, H&R Block and SalesForce.com.
We have invested billions of dollars in the Watson business unit since its inception in 2014, with more than 15,000 professionals, and more than a third of IBM's research division is devoted to leading-edge AI research. When you consider the vast scope of IBM's work in AI, from Watson Health to Watson Financial Services to the emerging Internet of Things opportunity, it is clear that no other company is doing AI at the scale of IBM.
By the end of this year, Watson will touch one billion people in some way · Watson can “see,” able to describe the contents of an image. For example, Watson can identify melanoma from skin lesion images with 95 percent accuracy, according to research with Memorial Sloan Kettering. · Watson can “hear,” understanding speech including Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish, Portuguese, among others. · Watson can “read” 9 languages. · Watson can “feel” impulses from sensors in elevators, buildings, autos and even ball bearings. · At IBM, there are more than 1,000 researchers focused solely on artificial intelligence