With a view to bringing more natural interaction to the tool, IBM(NYSE:IBM) has acquired artificial intelligence specialist Cognea, an Australian-founded startup that makes virtual assistants for enterprise customers such as bank call centres.
This was confirmed by IBM via a blog post where Watson group senior vice-president Michael Rhodin said the deal will help to change the people interact with computers:"Yet, even though the way we interact with computers has come a long way since the days of punch cards, in large part we are still forced to deal with them mainly on their terms - and hampered by their limitations. Not much longer."
“We're working on a host of technologies - a set of conversational services - aimed at enriching the relationship between you and the system," he said. "These conversational services range from helping systems understand us as individuals to selecting the appropriate words and responses that are most meaningful to each of us."
Financial terms of the deal were not known.
