IBM Watson At Your Service: New Watson Breakrough Transforms How Brands Engage Today s Connected Consumers

ARMONK, NY and NASHVILLE, TN - 21 May 2013: Ushering in a new era of cognitive computing systems, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today unveiled the IBM Watson Engagement Advisor, a technology breakthrough that allows brands to crunch big data in record time to transform the way they engage clients in key functions such as customer service, marketing and sales.

Now businesses can better serve consumers with a cognitive computing assistant that learns, adapts and understands a companys data quickly and easily, enabling users to have IBM Watson at work quickly, while increasing its knowledge and value over time.

Two years after its triumph on Jeopardy!, the IBM Watson Engagement Advisor is a first of a kind system designed to help customer-facing personnel assist consumers with deeper insights more quickly than previously possible. Delivered through cloud-delivered services and online chat sessions, IBM Watson will empower a brands customer service agents to provide fast, data-driven answers, or sit directly in the hands of consumers via mobile device. In one simple click, the solutions "Ask Watson" feature will quickly help address customers questions, offer feedback to guide their purchase decisions, and troubleshoot their problems.

Leading brands from a variety of industries are exploring how the IBM Watson Engagement Advisor can help them engage with their customers, including ANZ, Celcom, IHS, Nielsen and Royal Bank of Canada.

"We envision Watson to serve as cognitive assistant, adept and quick at making sense of Big Data, that can empower our regional bank advisors to better serve our two million wealth management clients across the region," said Joyce Phillips, CEO Global Wealth and Group Managing Director, Marketing, Innovation and Digital, ANZ Banking Group. "We are pleased to explore with IBM how Watson can enable smarter, faster financial recommendations yielding a customer experience that is simple, personalized and steeped in data-informed insights."

Around the globe and across platforms, Nielsen provides insights into what consumers watch and buy helping marketers engage with their customers in the smartest possible way," said Randall Beard, Global Head, Advertiser Solutions for Nielsen. "Our work with IBM's Watson is the latest from the Nielsen Innovation Lab, founded to advance research in advertising effectiveness. Watsons unique capacity to uncover insights from Big Data by simply posing a question in natural language is incredibly powerful. Using Watson, we will explore the ways we can help agencies and their client brands more effectively engage with consumers across devices and improve the impact of their advertising and media plans.

Part of IBMs Smarter Commerce initiative, the newest capabilities of IBM Watson are a natural fit for customer engagement, based on its ability to understand the nuances of human language, process questions akin to the way people think, and quickly cull through vast amounts of big data for relevant, evidence-based responses to its human users needs.

The rise of the digital consumer has spawned a range of online, mobile and social media commerce trends that require businesses to deepen their interactions with customers and transform the way they provide marketing, sales and service. Consumers expect brands to know them individually, deliver personalized interactions and self service options. Business leaders -- such as chief marketing officers, customer experience leaders and heads of sales -- must transform the way they interact with consumers to build brand loyalty and improve customer service.

The key to success: IBM Watson, via cognitive computing intellect, can proactively engage with a business customers, and continuously learn from interactions, anytime and anywhere, providing fast, more accurate and personalized interactions.

The IBM Watson Engagement Advisor will help companies make their interactions count by knowing, delivering and learning what each customer wants in the context of their preferences and actions sometimes before even the customer knows it themselves. Consider these findings:

Millennial consumers will comprise nearly half of the workforce by 2020 -- using paychecks for major purchases that require top-flight customer service -- from cars to insurance policies.

There will be more than 10 billion mobile devices by 2016, outpacing the human population.

An IBM study of 1,700 chief marketing officers (CMOs) reveals that 65 percent of CMOs feel under prepared for the growth of choices that todays empowered consumers have for communications channels, such as smart phones and tablets.

These disruptive forces are empowering consumers and raising their expectations of the entire customer experience. This power shift from the seller to the buyer is redefining the term "commerce." Retailers were the first to face the rising power of consumers, but now companies across a wide array of industries such as telecommunications, financial services and others have begun adapting to these changes.

With the latest IBM Watson debut, IBM is enabling clients to better respond to market shifts in real-time, automate marketing, and transform the way they service their clients, while improving their global brand presence.

"IBM is taking Watson to the masses in ways that positively impact peoples lives, from helping doctors improve patient care to helping businesses put consumers first, in an increasingly mobile world," said Manoj Saxena, General Manager, IBM Watson Solutions. "Customer engagement is a natural fit for Watson, which can instantly create a strong bond between who customers are as individuals, and what types of information will help them reach their goals. The end product: users will come away feeling known

LINK:	http://www-03.ibm.com/press/uk/en/pressrelease/41146.wss...
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