To enter the era of cognitive, there must be change: IBM
Businesses need to invent new ways to think in a cognitive era, according to IBM Watson master inventor, Peter Haggar. He claimed that entering into an era of cognitive, businesses must be inspired to change even though it might not be simple.
Haggar was speaking at the recent IBM Masters of Invention and Innovation event in Sydney alongside some other IBM fellows and masters of innovation.
“To innovate, you must be inspired to change. The key is enabling people and computers to work better together. Businesses need to think about how they can enhance human interactions with computers so these computers can enhance what we do,” he said.
According to Haggar, the world is moving towards the cognitive era of computing and the only way to move between eras is to adopt change.
“Businesses should embrace the cognitive. IBM is embracing it and that means it could leapfrog for other businesses too.”
Haggar claimed data is a key element in this new era. He mentioned that 90 per cent of the world’s data has been created in the last five years, with 80 per cent of it being unstructured and not being neatly organised.
“What does this say about the next five years? When you think about all this data that’s unstructured, today’s computing systems can barely do anything with it. Are enterprises today advantaging all the data that exists today? The answer is probably no.
“They’re not advantaging it how they could be to transform the industry. A lot of this data is ‘dark’ – meaning it’s not accessible to systems. If we think about tools and the knowhow to unlock an advantage to all these data that we currently have, and will continue to have, cognitive tech needs to be adopted,” he added.
Haggar claimed these cognitive technologies will make interaction more human-like and create deeper human engagements with technology.
“When your business thinks, you can outthink it. Those on this wave, are the ones that are trying to disrupt and with those technologies, you will be able to differentiate what you are doing,” he mentioned.
Haggar also indicated that IBM will be committing to cognitive APIs through its Watson system.
“We have services that deal with language, speech and vision, and data insights. Some of them are experimental, others in beta, or are generally available but they all are pushing the envelope. We’re going to continue to expand on this,” he added.
In addition, he claimed such moves by IBM will continue to inspire the transform for other organisations, its partners, and customers.
“The world is changing right in front of our eyes but what are we doing? We need to move forward and to do that, you need to always transform yourself so you don’t remain stagnant.
“And when you think about all the insights you can achieve from data, it will provide the tools for innovation. We should not protect the past when it comes to the new era of computing. As technology leaders, we have to make this happen,” he concluded.
