Thinking computers no longer belong in fiction. For the past few years, people have witnessed the AI revolution unfold – from virtual assistants that can sing you ‘happy birthday’ to AI-infused fitness coaches that provide you with real-time encouragement. With industry leaders like Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and IBM leading the charge, consumers and businesses alike expect the revolution to pick up the pace.
Today, one of the most promising AI solutions available in the market would be IBM Watson. Named after IBM’s first CEO, Watson is a question answering system that incorporates natural language processing, knowledge representation, automated reasoning, and machine learning.
What’s really impressive about Watson is that it allows developers to build a working chatbot within a few minutes. Other than text input, the platform also supports a handful of APIs for the utilization of data such as the user’s tone of voice, visual cues, and more.
Here are some of the notable tech startups that use Watson to deliver AI-powered experiences to users:
Tripbru
It makes sense for companies to apply Watson for augmenting customer service, but the platform is much more flexible than that. Tripbru is a smart tourism platform that leverages Watson’s capabilities to enhance the experience of visitors in hotels, museums, resorts, and other attractions. It works through a mobile app, which offers interactive and entertaining content with gamification elements.
For example, users can earn points by taking selfies in certain locations, which they can use later to redeem exclusive gifts. Tripbru also supports eCommerce functions such as souvenir purchases, ticket preorders, and Q&A support.
Local Motors – Olli
Local Motors – the company responsible for the world’s first fully functional 3D-printed car – took a step further by integrating Watson into their line of self-driving buses nicknamed ‘Olli’. With Watson’s language and speech recognition abilities, passengers only need to say their desired destination as if they’re talking to a human cab driver. Olli will then take them to the location with the help of LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), radar technology, and cameras at a safe speed of 12 miles per hour.
Of course, the safety of Olli’s riders is still the top priority of Local Motors. This is why the buses are constantly monitored by humans, even though Watson is proven to react faster and have better judgment than any living person.
MusicGeek
MusicGeek takes digital music recommendations to a whole new level with the help of Watson. Apart from obtaining insights from select music blogs and biographies, the platform also leverages a goldmine of data that interconnects artists, genres, venues, and performances to turn Watson into the ultimate music recommendation platform.
MusicGeek is developed and currently offered by the company Quantone, which covers a library of over 15 million tracks and counting. When added to the recommendations, tracks are accompanied by comprehensive details such as the recording location, release data, beats per minute and genre.
Refine.Ai
Small businesses and startups can now bring Watson aboard their customer service and sales through platforms like Refine.Ai. By integrating a chatbot software into your business website, you can save a lot of time and money on customer service as well as eliminate the costs of human error. It will also enable you to build a more approachable brand that does not depend on the availability of support agents to help customers in need.
Refine.Ai works by developing a custom chatbot solution that’s specifically tailored to the needs of any company. And to make sure the chatbots work as intended, the platform also aggregates data for future optimizations as well as enable human intervention at any point of conversations.