The Big Data revolution has produced a wellspring of information for companies to draw on when making their business decisions and interacting with customers. This has proven extremely valuable and a necessary part of doing business in the 21st Century. However, for that data to be of real use, someone has to look it over to find the value and the hidden patterns that make sense of everything. As more and more data comes in, this vital job has become a real challenge. Cognitive systems are a solution to making Big Data manageable.

To shed some light on cognitive systems, John Furrier and Dave Vellante, cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, joined Nancy Pearson, VP of marketing, cognitive business at IBM, during the IBM InterConnect 2016 conference.

Finding the path

Cognitive systems are programs designed to learn from and reason with the data they are given. IBM’s Watson is a prime example of a cognitive system. When it comes to working with cognitive systems, Pearson explained there are three paths. At the top level, there’s a full cognitive system like Watson. These are expensive and take months to train but can transform industries. Then there’s the path of creating applications that run with cognitive systems, she said. Finally, companies can infuse cognitive apps into their existing business infrastructure.

“Clients start in different places,” Pearson said, “But they’re all after a competitive advantage.” The only way to find true insights in the explosion of data, she continued, is by leveraging Cloud and cognitive services.

Watson and storytelling

IBM is betting big on Watson. The company has poured billions into the system, and the results are impressive. Watson is showing up in real-world use cases. Pearson described how more than 40 major clients were using Watson to help their businesses. While other machine-learning programs are out there, Watson, she said, has an impact far beyond anything else. “Watson is very different,” Pearson said.

To showcase this difference, Pearson mentioned the concept of “hero storytelling,” IBM’s concept of bringing out the benefits of the technology by interviewing customers to understand their motivations and how their lives have changed. They hope this will help spread the word about cognitive systems in the real world.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of IBM InterConnect 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE