IBM Watson Is Changing Travel in Ways Nobody’s Expecting
Photo Credit: The IBM Cognitive Studio showcased advances in cloud-based computing, cognitive intelligence, and design thinking at SXSW 2016. Skift
Skift Take
IBM is attempting to build a global business around its Watson cognitive computing platform, but there are significant challenges for many C-suite executives in travel and transportation to understand how to develop new strategies in the fast moving data and digital landscape.
For the last five years, IBM has strived to reinvent itself as a cloud computing and cognitive platform company to support its large enterprise clients as they shift their operations online, including many in travel and transportation.
With most large companies today evolving into digital companies, cloud computing is a booming marketplace for the big four industry providers: IBM, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Google, for example, stated that cloud could overtake advertising revenue in five years.
Travel companies like Etihad and Lufthansa are helping drive IBM's cloud sales. The UAE carrier signed a $700 million IT deal with IBM last October, while Germany's national airline invested $1.25 billion in Big Blue in November 2014 to integrate cloud computing.
Cognitive, on the other hand, is IBM's wild child savant compared to its older cloud sibling. IBM's cognitive strategy is the company's big push for 2016, based in large part on the IBM Watson artificial intellig
