On Thursday, IBM and ifttt announced that IBM will bring its enterprise artificial intelligence assistant to the ifttt platform to provide customers with more services other than weather warning or answering trivia.
Watson assistant, formerly known as Watson conversation, was officially unveiled at the IBM 2018 conference held in Las Vegas on March 20. In addition to new analysis features and features that allow developers to create smoother conversational interaction, the assistant is now available for versions for the automotive and hotel industries.
Ifttt ("if this, then that") is a technology company in San Francisco. Its network service allows users to automatically complete tasks in a variety of other services or cloud applications. According to ifttt's estimation, so far, the platform has absorbed 14 million consumers, 5000 active developers and 75 million small applications.
BRET Greenstein, global vice president of the Internet of things at IBM Watson, said that now the two enterprises are working together to help their enterprise customers create a new consumption experience for the era of the Internet of things.
The cooperation was announced in a financing statement on Thursday. It is understood that ifttt obtained $24 million in a round of financing led by salesforce venture and supported by IBM, the Chamberlain group and fenox venture capital. The newly injected funds will be used to expand the ifttt platform and recruit employees.
Greenstein said that the new cooperation involves more than superficial integration. IBM and ifttt will stand out from the cooperation one day in the future, which reflects the complex use cases of IBM and ifttt in the future.
Although today's virtual assistants can answer simple questions and complete basic tasks, IBM and ifttt hope to introduce new intelligent services, which can understand users over time and bring beneficial results in the case of dollar requirements.
"Real assistants need scenarios and automation," Greenstein said. "Watson Internet of things provides the former and ifttt provides the latter."
For example, a smart home solution based on this technology may remind owners that if the front door is accidentally unlocked according to the behavior patterns and habits of family members, they do not have to set an alarm in advance.
Greenstein said that the key to involving developers is to create an ecosystem as open as possible. This partnership is based on the "principle of openness", that is, each company can combine with Watson assistant and ifttt without giving up differentiation.
Another major factor is data privacy. "All data and interactions belong to our customers, not us," Greenstein promised. Although other ecosystems may use the data they collect for marketing, IBM has taken a completely let go approach in this regard.
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