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What are the most innovative strategies / tactics that IBM Watson's competitors are utilizing to grow brand awareness and/or engagement.
General Electric, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and various startups are all major artificial intelligence competitors to IBM's Watson. IBM has a lead in the market but each competitor is positioning itself in different areas. Preexisting direct information on the innovative strategies IBM's competitors are using to grow brand awareness is not available. Despite this, it's clear that these competitors are using their distinct competitive differentiators to separate themselves from IBM's Watson. These companies also use the press in order to garner buzz and increase awareness around their brand's artificial intelligence advancements. Below you'll find a detailed account of each competitor's differentiators and strategies.
OVERVIEW
Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is an integral part of the "growing digital health field." This sector, according to Deloitte, was worth approximately "$61 billion globally in 2013 and is expected to grow to $233 billion in 2020." Watson is the result of significant research from IBM in artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML). IBM's cloud network has "over 50 data centers present in 20 countries." This makes IBM "one of the few cloud platforms with the largest footprint."
In 2013, IBM's Watson could "analyze 600,000 pieces of medical evidence, 2 million pages of text (from 42 medical journals and clinical trials) and 1.5 million patient records before suggesting oncology-related treatment." This analysis was accomplished in mere seconds. Currently, Watson can also "analyze medical images" provide suggestions for "gene-based treatments, screen skin diseases, understand information in the EMR, and assist doctors in managing patients with chronic diseases."
However, as the company switches its focus to cloud platforms it has experienced 20 consecutive quarters of revenue decline. This is in comparison to Google, one of it's smaller competitors in the space, that experienced a 93% gain "in the second half of last year." IBM only had a 21% revenue increase. There is also a disparity in capital spending between IBM and some of its competitors. The company spent under $4 billion annually which is significantly smaller than the $10 billion Microsoft spent or the $10.9 billion spent by Google in 2016. It's clear that IBM's competitors intend to pour significant funding into increasing their competitive edge.
IBM's Watson has also experienced some publicity setbacks. In February 2017 the company lost its promising contract with M.D. Anderson Cancer Center to use the Watson platform. This was then followed by the negative comments of Chamath Palihapitiya, the founder, and CEO of Social Capital. On May 8th of this year, Palihapitiya stated that "Watson is a joke." The comments were later slightly backtracked and he explained that he's been working with companies with a focus on "cancer and diabetes" that are out-marketed by IBM but perform better. Regardless of his clarification, it's clear that IBM's competitors are aggressively competing for market relevancy.
Competitors
GENERAL ELECTRIC (GE)
General Electric Co. partnered with Partners HealthCare, "Massachusetts’ biggest nonprofit hospital network," to use artificial intelligence to improve healthcare. The initiative is focused on "building software to help doctors more quickly and accurately interpret medical images, but over time, they also want to create applications for genomics, population health, and other areas of medicine." The partnership will create an open platform that will "house hundreds of applications to help interpret medical data." GE and Partners are beginning their efforts with radiology because in that field "dealing with digital pictures from MRI and CT machines, more easily lends itself to computer analysis." This will result in improvements to treatment plans, and diagnosis for patients who suffer from strokes, "cancer, and many other conditions." As a whole, digital health is responsible for over "$1.5 billion in annual revenue." GE executives anticipate this figure to "increase at double-digit rates by 2020."
Representatives for GE have stated that their move from traditional industrial manufacturing to "a maker of software-enabled devices and equipment" is part of their digital strategy. Their focus on radiology and building partnerships to facilitate their efforts is how they plan to stand out in the market and build awareness in the health sector. Microsoft has strategically shifted its business focus and made public announcements and statements to increase public awareness and engagement with their brand.
MICROSOFT
Microsoft announced the creation of a new group "called the Microsoft AI and Research Group." The group's focus is to push "AI into the company's products, including the Bing search engine, the Cortana digital assistant, and Microsoft's forays into robotics."
Microsoft is differentiating itself from its competitors by focusing on their Bot Framework, "which enables organizations to build intelligent agents, known as Bots." In terms of the healthcare space, Microsoft envisions nurses and doctors using "remote monitoring solutions not only to analyze a patient’s vitals such as blood pressure, weight, and heart-rate but also to interpret a patient’s mood based on speech and tone analysis during a scheduled phone conversation." Despite the fact that Microsoft entered the market later than IBM, they are banking on their understanding of the developer market. They also benefit from the fact that they built Cortana "from the ground up to be used 'as a service,' in the cloud." IBM, on the other hand, converted its efforts to the cloud and is instead focused on "enterprise customers." The fact that their platform was built with this intention in mind is an advantage. It's also noted that Cortana's voice branding connects with users using a "feminine" voice.
The company has also differentiated itself by partnering with Dartmouth-Hitchcock and L V Prasad Eye Institute. The latter organization's partnership will focus on a consortium that will use machine learning to improve eye care and avoid preventative blindness. Microsoft's Dartmouth partnership will use the Cortana Intelligence Suite to gather "data from sensors, devices, and even phone calls." In the event that "a metric exceeds a predefined threshold, an alert is immediately sent to a nurse." This will then enable healthcare professionals to reach patients through phone, text, or video chat as soon as an issue occurs. This, combined with their other healthcare related efforts, indicates that Microsoft's brand strategy centers around their communication features. Their bot usage and tailored patient communication make them standout in the market.
AMAZON
The company is building a "cloud computing group" specifically for AI. Amazon has not currently made a big push into the healthcare sector but it has made headway through its virtual assistant, Alexa. Developers have created healthcare apps for Alexa and "Boston Children’s Hospital created the first Alexa healthcare “skill” last year." This "skill" works as a "reference tool for parents to gather information about common child maladies." Alexa has also begun to enter doctor’s offices as well as hospitals. This taps into the standing notion that the "best user interface for clinicians would be voice." Rob McCray, "the president and CEO of the Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance in San Diego" stated that "Amazon, with its depth of knowledge in language and natural language processing and A.I., is going to be a more significant player in healthcare."
Amazon has plans to potentially become a "virtual doctor’s assistant." The company has "launched a healthcare lab, where it is exploring opportunities to mine data from electronic health records." By focusing on becoming a virtual assistant Amazon is leveraging the brand awareness people have with Alexa as they segue into the healthcare market. Individuals already trust their voice capabilities and users have a familiarity with using its voice assistant on a consumer level in their personal lives. In terms of voice branding, Amazon has chosen a "sweet yet confident" sound to connect with its user base. The brand's strategy focuses on streamlining processes for doctors by operating hands-free. This is particularly beneficial for physicians with vast responsibilities.
GOOGLE
An advantage that Google has is its access to large quantities of data from its search capabilities and other avenues. In terms of healthcare data, Google’s sister company, Verily Life Sciences, is "partnering with Duke and Stanford to develop a highly structured health database on some 10,000 volunteers." The information gathered will include both their clinical visits and data "from wearable health-monitoring devices."
The company's "subsidiary DeepMind, which is best known for its AlphaGo software," also has a healthcare-focused business. DeepMind has worked with hospitals in London in order to learn how "to detect eye disease and speed up the process of targeting treatments for head and neck cancers."
Google has also developed Fei Fei and ImageNet, "a vast database of images designed to accelerate the development of AI that can "see." Fei Fei was created in partnership with the Artificial Intelligence and Vision labs at Stanford University. The platform will handle speech and image recognition, "machine-driven translation, natural language understanding, and more." These initiatives reiterate the competitive advantage of Google's massive data archives. The information they've collected has the potential to accelerate their progress in the market.
STARTUPS
According to CB Insights, there are "at least 106 startups that have sprung up since 2013 and are still in business" in the machine learning healthcare segment. In the past, IBM has acquired some startups that posed a threat to their cognitive computing efforts. Their acquisitions include AlchemyAPI. Some remaining challengers include Flatiron Health, "Digital Reasoning's Synthesys platform" and "Narrative Science's Quill."
Flatiron health is an "oncology-focused analytics software" that recently received Series-C funding of $175 million. Digital Reasoning uses "Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning techniques" to interpret "digital communication by analyzing entities and rela1tionships in context." The platform closes knowledge gaps, alerts users to issues and unexpected insights. Narrative Science takes data from various sources and then compiles it into a simplified narrative that breakdowns the meaning of the data. These competitors are utilizing their strategic focus to increase brand awareness and engagement. IBM may be a bigger brand but these smaller organizations can deliver more specialized products that appeal to segments of the market. These brands are gaining notoriety because they're "lean, nimble and more focused."
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, Microsoft, GE, Amazon, Google, and various startups are all major competitors to IBM in the artificial intelligence space. Unfortunately, preexisting information on the strategies these companies use to develop brand awareness and engagement was not available. However, information on the distinct competitive advantages of each brand was publicly accessible. This information was used to determine the innovative strategies of each brand as it relates to their brand awareness and position in the healthcare market. It's clear that Microsoft differentiates itself through its Bot Framework, Google uses its massive data reach, GE uses its partnerships and investments, and Amazon strategically leverages its Alexa voice assistant. Various startups are also competing on a smaller scale with their narrow market focus.