Dive Brief:
- IBM has formed a new business unit dedicated to artificial intelligence, the Wall Street Journal reports.
- The new division will advise companies in how to take advantage of IBM’s Watson AI software and tailor the software to their business needs.
- IBM said it already has more than 350 partners that base their programs on its Watson Developer Cloud service, from whom it collects a percentage of revenue.
Dive Insight:
IBM has high expectations for AI growth and has set a revenue target of $1 billion annually by 2018.
The company said believes it could serve as the “core of a new generation of ultrasmart digital assistants in data-heavy industries such as medicine, financial management and oil-and-gas exploration.”
“We see that that is going mainstream,” said Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice president of IBM Global Business Services. “It’s very, very early days, but we can see it.”
The company said it also sees opportunity in professional services as less technical companies work to adapt AI to their own individual problems.
