Five Ways Cognitive Computing Will Power The Internet Of Things

By Harriet Green, IBM

Billions of interconnected devices are gathering, analyzing and distributing vast stores of information from around the world. We call it the Internet of Things.

These devices are embedded in everything from cars, store shelves, buildings and planes to wearable health monitors. But the value isn’t in the devices themselves, it’s in the datathe devices generate. And in the insights from the analytics of the data.

By 2020, the IoT network will consist of more than 29 billion connected devices, according to IDC. But today, nearly 90 percent of the data generated by the IoT isn’t actually put to use. We are merely scratching the surface of the Internet of Things.

For that reason, today IBM announced the opening of its global headquarters for Watson Internet of Things in Munich, Germany, launching a series of new offerings, capabilities and ecosystem partners designed to extend the power of cognitivecomputing to the billions of connected devices, sensors and systems that comprise the IoT.

The Highlight Towers at Mies-van-der-Rohe-Straße 6 in Munich, Germany, is the 

global headquarters for IBM’s new Watson IoT unit.Photo: Rainer Viertlböck for IBM

These new offerings will be available through the IBM Watson IoT Cloud, the company’s global platform for IoT business and developers.

Our traditional approach to programmable computing — in which data is shepherded through a series of pre-determined, if/then processes to arrive at outcomes — simply cannot process the degree and kind of data needed to fulfill the true promise of IoT.

Programmable systems thrive on prescribed scenarios using predictable data. And this rigidity limits their usefulness in addressing many aspects of a complex, fast-paced world, where the value of data decreases exponentially every second it goes unused.

Cognitive computing has no such limitations.

Rather than being explicitly programmed, cognitive systems learn from interactions with humans and their experiences with their environment. They are not deterministic. They are probabilistic. And this enables them to keep pace with the volume, complexity, and unpredictability of information generated by the IoT.

Cognitive systems can also make sense of the 80 percent of the world’s data that computer scientists call “unstructured.” Think videos, audio, even blogs and Twitter feeds.

That means businesses are now able to illuminate aspects of the IoT that were previously invisible: patterns and insight culled from disparate sources, which allow businesses to make more informed decisions.##When cognitive computing is applied to the IoT, the result is what we call Cognitive IoT, which we define as systems that infuse intelligence into, and learn from, the physical world.

It’s not just the input that sets Cognitive IoT apart. In addition to generating answers to numerical problems, cognitive systems can present unbiased hypotheses, reasoned arguments and recommendations. They understand an organization’s goals, and can integrate and analyze the relevant data to help businesses achieve those goals.

Cognitive computing is not a single discipline of computer science. It is the combination of multiple academic fields: from hardware architecture to algorithmic strategy to process design to industry expertise. This is a critical distinction between IBM’s approach to cognitive computing and other current approaches to Artificial Intelligence. And it enables five fundamentally new characteristics of the Internet of Things to emerge. They are:

1) Deep human engagement: Cognitive systems enable more fully human interactions with people. They use IoT data available today and add to that picture details that have been difficult or impossible to detect: tone, sentiment, emotional state, environmental conditions, and the strength and nature of a person’s relationships. Through this continuous learning, businesses can offer customers deeper engagements that deliver greater and greater value, and become more natural, anticipatory and emotionally appropriate.

2) Extended expertise: Cognitive systems are designed to help an organization keep pace, serving as a companion to enhance its workforce’s performance. Because these systems master the language of professions — whether its the language of medicine, or retail, or manufacturing — they can both understand and teach complex expertise. This reduces the time required for employees to become experts.

3) Products and services infused with cognition: Cognition enables the introduction of new classes of products and services that sense, reason, and learn about their users and the world around them. This is the true promise of Cognitive IoT, because it allows for continuous improvement and adaptation, and for augmentation of capabilities not previously imagined. This is already happening with cars, medical devices, appliances, and even toys.

4) Cognitive processes and operations: Cognition transforms how a company operates. Business processes infused with cognitive capabilities capitalize on the phenomenon of data, from internal and external sources. This gives them heightened awareness of workflows, context, and environments, leading to continuous learning, better forecasting, and operational effectiveness, along with decision-making at the speed of today’s data.

5) Enhanced exploration and discovery: Ultimately, the most powerful benefit the Cognitive IoT will deliver is far better “headlights” into an organization’s increasingly volatile and complex future. Such headlights are becoming more important, as leaders in all industries are compelled to place big bets. By applying cognitive technologies to IoT, businesses can uncover patterns, opportunities, and actionable hypotheses that would be virtually impossible to discover using traditional research or programmable systems alone.

The purpose of the Internet of Things is to connect us more closely with the physical world. It shares information with us about the cars we drive, the tools we use, and the buildings we live in. But without cognitive computing, the usefulness of this information would be limited by its own complexity and scale. We would only be able to see slivers of insight. The rest would remain in the dark.

That’s why we believe that cognitive computing is essential in realizing the true value of the Internet of Things. And in so doing, together we will discover answers to questions we never thought to ask.

Harriet Green is General Manager of IBM Watson IoT and Education.

To learn more about the new era of business, visit www.ibm.com/outthink