The IBM Watson Discovery Advisor cloud service now can identify data correlations and trends, even if researchers do not know which questions to ask.

IBM has upgraded Watson Discovery Advisor, implementing “significant advances” in Watson’s cognitive computing capabilities.

“Watson Discovery Advisor is a powerful tool that not only understands nuances in human language, but also has the ability to understand the language across industries,” an IBM spokesperson told Talkin’ Cloud. “It also provides the ability for researchers to visually see connections in data they would not have considered. Because of this, Watson Discovery Advisor can reduce the time researchers need to formulate conclusions that can advance their work, bringing new levels of speed and precision to research and development, from months to days and days to just hours.”

Watson Discovery Advisor is designed to reduce the time researchers need to test hypotheses and formulate conclusions, according to IBM.

The new upgrades, meanwhile, enable Watson Discovery Advisor to understand the language of science.

“We’re entering an extraordinary age of data-driven discovery,” Mike Rhodin, senior vice president of the IBM Watson Group, said in a prepared statement. “We’re empowering researchers with a powerful tool which will help increase the impact of investments organizations make in research and development, leading to significant breakthroughs.”

How does Watson Discovery Advisor work?

IBM said Watson Discovery Advisor can accelerate research and unlock patterns across all types of data.

The cloud service leverages proprietary and external data to ensure an organization can collect the most relevant research consistently.

Several life sciences organizations currently are using Watson Discovery Advisor, including:

IBM also noted Watson Discovery Advisor ultimately could help organizations in numerous industries, including:

“The future long-term impacts that Watson Discovery Advisor will have on users are tremendous,” an IBM spokesperson said. “Not only will users experience reduced time needed to formulate conclusions that can advance their work, but Watson Discovery Advisor will also be able to share with them insights they had never previously considered.”

Watson Discovery Advisor’s cognitive computing capabilities “will allow human experts to interact with large bodies of data and research and the knowledge and insight of many other experts in their field,” IBM said.

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