IBM’s cognitive computing platform, Watson, will become your personal online shopping concierge thanks to an alliance between IBM and Fluid Inc., announced today. The Fluid Expert Shopper (XPS), built on Watson, will absorb vast quantities of product information and match online shoppers to the products that best fit their needs. Need a tablet with a USB port, a display that is easy to read in bright sunlight, a 10.5” screen, and a six hour battery life? Rather than searching through hundreds of pages of information on a dozen Web sites and building a spreadsheet to compare the choices, ask XPS.

The jump from first non-human Jeopardy champion to online shopping professional may seem large, but this new use case is a natural for Watson. Its strength is absorbing unstructured material. At Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center it helps oncologists construct individual treatment plans for cancer patients based on volumes of research.

“The common theme is the ability to interact with information in an intuitive, natural way and take advantage of a system that gets progressively smarter as it absorbs more information,” said Steve Gold, VP of the IBM Watson Ecosystem. The initial healthcare proof point provided “an opportunity to better understand the implications of cognitive computing…. We realized that it is applicable to a broad set of industries.”

Why XPS

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Online shoppers need the help. Seven out of 10 e-shopping carts are abandoned. Half of calls to product support end unresolved. Studies find that 50 percent of customers spend 75 percent or more of their total shopping time doing online research according to data from the e-tailing group and PowerReviews. An IBM Institute for Business Value study of 30,000 global customers found that 40 percent use mobile, social and location technologies to gather information but are not likely to use them to research products. Those shoes may be perfect, but finding out if they are available in the right size can be difficult.

Watson can select products based on the individual’s sizes, preferences, special needs, and other important considerations, confirm their availability and present the best choices on the customer’s laptop, tablet or smartphone, at home or in the store, making the shopping experience easier and more pleasant.

IBM-Fluid partnership

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IBM is making an investment in Fluid out of the $100 million it has dedicated this year to developing a new class of cognitive apps. Fluid is currently customizing XPS for several consumer brands including outdoor apparel and equipment retailer The North Face.

XPS provides an opportunity for retailers to create differentiation online based on service, attract customers who want a personal online experience and save money by reducing product returns. It also will create a competitive advantage for IBM’s SoftLayer business cloud service in the retail vertical. Watson is expected to debut as an IBM service platform on SoftLayer this fall.

Grdaphic courtesy of IBM Corp.