IBM Corp. is no newbie when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI). Its Watson system, which caught the public’s eye in 2011 when it won on the television game show Jeopardy, has been used for everything from chatbots to assisting in medical research to (I kid you not) concocting recipes for poutine.
However, recent developments around generative AI applications such as chatGPT, and the associated horror stories of the technology making up “facts” – a phenomenon known as hallucinations – have raised the technology’s profile to unprecedented heights, and often not in a good way. This can make it difficult for businesses to accept it as a tool.
Yet at IBM Think on Tour in Toronto, Sebastian Krause, IBM senior vice president and chief revenue officer, noted during his keynote, “The rapid advancements in AI have really brought its potential into focus, creating one of those, I would say, very rare moments when a technology is of such a profound benefit to both businesses and societies alike – or it can be of such a profound benefit if it is used correctly. So with all this potential, we believe that it is very important to differentiate between AI for business and AI for the consumer space.”
After Krause’s keynote, IT World Canada sat down with Dave McCann, IBM Canada president and managing partner of IBM Consulting Canada, and IBM Canada’s general manager, technology Frank Attaie for a discussion about what factors can make AI enterprise-grade.