IBM’s super-computer Watson, which won fame with an historic win on a US quiz show in 2011, could soon put its vast resources to work in customer services, the company has reported.
The computer could be put to work on hotlines, backing up human colleagues, says the computer company, noting that Watson can understand human speech and could probably be put to use by any company willing to invest about 250,000 euros ($ 332,500).
Watson became a household name in 2011 when it won on US quiz show Jeopardy, earning a $ 1 million jackpot by beating human contestants in answering trivia questions.
IBM has also unveiled other new software and technology products designed to help manage ever-growing mountains of data.
One idea is a set of building blocks that mid-sized companies could purchase to build their own version of the super-computer Blue Gene. Prices start at 1.75 million euros.
The company’s newest products include more than 70 new and revamped products in the areas of storage systems, networks and servers. The company has paid out more than 1 billion euros in development and purchases to support the new programmes.