MedCity News
Will IBM’s reported desire to sell Watson cast a shadow over big tech’s healthcare ambitions?
IBM is reportedly looking to sell its Watson Health business. If true, it would be another stumble in a much-hyped healthcare project by a technology company.
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When IBM first launched its Watson Health unit in 2015, it had to live up to a grandiose vision. The company’s AI creation, popularized by its win on Jeopardy!, was pitched to oncologists as a tool that could comb through medical literature and cancer patients’ health records, detecting patterns that they could not.
Reports later found that it fell short of those claims, and in some cases, offered ‘unsafe and incorrect’ suggestions. Now, IBM might be considering selling its Watson Health unit, as it focuses more on its cloud computing business, according to the Wall Street Journal. Citing anonymous sources, the Journal reported the health unit brought in $1 billion in revenue and isn’t currently profitable.