Ulysse Sabbagh

I.B.M. hopes to take a big step toward mass-market commercialization of Watson on Tuesday, announcing that the technology will be applied to customer service, broadly defined. Its new offering, called IBM Watson Engagement Advisor, is being pitched as a smart assistant whose services can apply to almost any industry, but especially those that receive many customer service calls, like retailing, banking, insurance and telecommunications.

So after winning Jeopardy!, Watson (an artificial intelligence that actually exists) will answer customer calls. Not a bad move from IBM.