IBM Courts Coders with Watson

International Business Machines Corp. showed off its artificial intelligence software this week for use as a foundation for programmers, as it welcomed about 1,300 software developers to the first Watson Developer Conference in San Francisco.

Watson in 2011 famously beat human contestants on the television game show “Jeopardy,” and IBM went on to apply the technology to helping doctors diagnose and treat cancer. Since then, the technology has evolved into a collection of software that dispenses human-like conversation, vision, and learning functions over the internet, and IBM aims to attract more software developers who would embed its computer smarts in their own programs.

While other companies that have built artificial intelligence engines have focused on embedding them in their own products, IBM has taken a platform approach, offering more than a dozen services that can be used independently or together. “If you’re going to build a platform, you have to give [software developers] access to something they can’t get anywhere else,” said IBM Chief Executive Ginni Rometty, speaking at a Churchill Club event Wednesday evening in San Francisco.

Watson has attracted software developers in established companies and service providers, such as Twilio, which provides internet telephony under software control. Now IBM is reaching out to developers who may build new businesses on the software.

The conference will help IBM “get deeper into the developer pyramid,” said Rob High, vice president and chief technology officer of IBM Watson.

At the conference, the company released Project Intu, an experimental system intended to make it easier for coders to put Watson services in robots, wearables and mobile devices.  For example, it gives developers an easier way to program a robot to turn and point as it responds to a request for directions.

IBM doesn’t report Watson revenue separately, so it’s not clear how much the technology generates on its own. The Cognitive Solutions business that includes Watson folds in other lines of business as well. That category had $4.2 billion in revenue in the third quarter, up 4.5% year on year.

Generally speaking, though, artificial intelligence is on the rise. By 2018, about 75% of software development teams will include artificial intelligence in one or more applications or services, according to market watcher International Data Corp., up from last year’s forecast that 50% of developers would produce AI-equipped apps by 2018.

Although IBM’s chief rivals in artificial intelligence have packaged their technology as proprietary services, such as Amazon.com Inc.’s Alexa and Apple Inc.’s Siri, they have offered aspects of it to independent software developers. For instance, Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service lets developers put voice recognition and natural-language understanding into connected devices that have a microphone and speaker. In June, Apple announced that it would enable coders to embed voice control in their programs using its Siri virtual assistant.

Corrections & Amplifications:
The Watson conference took place this week. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the conference took place last week,

Write to Rachael King at [email protected]