- Announces first commercial availability of key technologies
from Project Debater;
- Integrated into IBM Watson, the new capabilities help
enable businesses to begin mining & analyzing some of the most
challenging aspects of human language
NEW YORK, March 11, 2020 /CNW/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM), the
leader in artificial intelligence for business1, is
announcing several new IBM Watson technologies designed to help
organizations begin identifying, understanding and analyzing some
of the most challenging aspects of the English language with
greater clarity, for greater insights.
The new technologies represent the first commercialization of
key Natural Language Processing (NLP) capabilities to come from IBM
Research's Project Debater, the only AI system capable of debating
humans on complex topics. For example, a new advanced sentiment
analysis feature is defined to identify and analyze idioms and
colloquialisms for the first time. Phrases, like 'hardly helpful,'
or 'hot under the collar,' have been challenging for AI systems
because they are difficult for algorithms to spot. With advanced
sentiment analysis, businesses can begin analyzing such language
data with Watson APIs for a more holistic understanding of their
operations. Further, IBM is bringing technology from IBM Research
for understanding business documents, such as PDF's and contracts,
to also add to their AI models.
"Language is a tool for expressing thought and opinion, as much
as it is a tool for information," said Rob
Thomas, General Manager, IBM Data and AI. "This is why we're
harvesting technology from Project Debater and integrating it into
Watson – to enable businesses to
capture, analyze, and understand more from human language and start
to transform how they utilize intellectual capital that's codified
in data."
Today IBM is announcing that it plans to integrate Project
Debater technologies into Watson
throughout the year, with a focus on advancing clients' ability to
exploit natural language:
A. Analysis –
Advanced Sentiment Analysis. IBM has enhanced sentiment
analysis to be able to better identify and understand complicated
word schemes like idioms (phrases and expressions) and so called,
sentiment shifters, which are combinations of words that, together,
take on new meaning, such as, "hardly helpful." This technology
will be integrated into Watson Natural Language Understanding this
month. In addition, we are announcing a new classification
technology that will enable clients to create AI models that can
more easily classify clauses that occur in business documents, like
procurement contracts. Based on Project Debater's deep
learning-based classification technology, the new capability can
learn from as few as several hundred samples to do new
classifications quickly and easily. It is planned to be added to
Watson Discovery later this year.
B. Briefs –
Summarization. This technology pulls textual data from a
variety of sources to provide users with a summary of what is being
said and written about a particular topic. An early version of
Summarization was leveraged at The GRAMMYS this year to analyze
over 18 million articles, blogs and bios to produce bite-sized
insights on hundreds of GRAMMY artists and celebrities. The data
was then infused into the red carpet live stream, on-demand videos
and photos across www.grammy.com to give fans deeper context about
the leading topics of the night. It is planned to be added to IBM
Watson Natural Language Understanding later in the year.
C. Clustering –
Advanced Topic Clustering. Building on insights gained from
Project Debater, new topic clustering techniques will enable users
to "cluster" incoming data to create meaningful "topics" of related
information, which can then be analyzed. The technique, which is
planned to be integrated into Watson Discovery later this year,
will also allow subject matter experts to customize and fine-tune
the topics to reflect the language of specific businesses or
industries, like insurance, healthcare and manufacturing.
IBM, has long been a leader in NLP, developing technologies that
enable computer systems to learn, analyze and understand human
language – including sentiment, dialects, intonations, and more –
with increasing accuracy and speed. IBM has brought its NLP
technology, much of which was born in IBM Research, to market via
Watson. Product such as, Watson
Discovery for document understanding, IBM Watson Assistant for
virtual agents, and Watson Natural Language Understanding for
advanced sentiment analysis, are all infused with NLP.
ESPN Fantasy Football uses Watson Discovery and Watson
Knowledge Studio to analyze millions of football data
sources each day during the season to offer millions
of fantasy football players real-time insights. By
processing natural language, Watson identifies the tone and sentiment of
news articles, blogs, forums, rankings, projections, podcasts and
tweets that cover everything from locker room insights to injury
analysis. ESPN Fantasy Football surfaces these insights in
player cards that snapshot the "boom" and "bust" potential of each
player, as well as a "Player Buzz" section that summarizes the
positive or negative commentary about a player.
KPMG, a multinational professional services network, and one of
the Big Four accounting organizations, worked with IBM to create an
AI solution based on a variety of Watson services, including Watson Natural
Language Understanding. This technology makes it more effective for
companies to identify, claim and retain potential R&D income
tax credits. Developed by KPMG, the solution can help clients
increase the amount of R&D income tax credits they capture
because the Watson technology is
able to review more documentation quickly while minimizing
disruption to the client's business.
In the past year, KPMG clients have seen more potential for
R&D tax credits, with some projects even seeing more than a
1000% increase in the number of documents reviewed. The solution
helps clients uncover more potential activities that qualify for
additional income tax credits, while reducing business disruption.
As a result, engineers and scientists can stay focused on
innovative R&D work by spending less time on income tax
compliance activities.
Watch 'The Debater'
Check out the trailer for The Debater, a rare,
behind-the-scenes look at the making of Project Debater though
the lens of an eclectic team of researchers that dare to take
AI into uncharted territory. Official Selection of the Copenhagen
International Documentary Film
Festival www.ibm.com/research/debater-film.
About IBM
For more information please visit IBM
Watson.
For more information please visit IBM Research.
Developers and data scientists can access Watson APIs at IBM
Developer.
Register here to view a webinar on the news which will be broadcast
on March 18 at 1:00PM ET.
Forward-Looking and Cautionary Statements
Except for the historical information and discussions contained
herein, statements contained in this release may constitute
forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking
statements are based on the company's current assumptions regarding
future business and financial performance. These statements involve
a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause
actual results to differ materially, including the following: a
downturn in economic environment and client spending budgets; the
company's failure to meet growth and productivity objectives; a
failure of the company's innovation initiatives; damage to the
company's reputation; risks from investing in growth opportunities;
failure of the company's intellectual property portfolio to prevent
competitive offerings and the failure of the company to obtain
necessary licenses; cybersecurity and data privacy considerations;
fluctuations in financial results, impact of local legal, economic,
political and health conditions; adverse effects from environmental
matters, tax matters and the company's pension plans; ineffective
internal controls; the company's use of accounting estimates; the
company's ability to attract and retain key employees and its
reliance on critical skills; impacts of relationships with critical
suppliers; product quality issues; impacts of business with
government clients; currency fluctuations and customer financing
risks; impact of changes in market liquidity conditions and
customer credit risk on receivables; reliance on third party
distribution channels and ecosystems; the company's ability to
successfully manage acquisitions, alliances and dispositions; risks
from legal proceedings; risk factors related to IBM securities; and
other risks, uncertainties and factors discussed in the company's
Form 10-Qs, Form 10-K and in the company's other filings with the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or in materials
incorporated therein by reference. Any forward-looking statement in
this release speaks only as of the date on which it is made. The
company assumes no obligation to update or revise any
forward-looking statements.
Contact
Michael
Zimmerman
IBM Media Relations
mrzimmerman@us.ibm.com
1 IDC Market Share: Worldwide Artificial Intelligence
Market Shares, 2018: Steady Growth — POCs Poised to Enter
Full-Blown Production (Doc # US45334719, July 2019)
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SOURCE IBM