 Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with the Q. We're at the North American International Auto Show, a lot going on, and really the theme of this year's show is not zero to 60 times, it's not how long is your drivetrain. It's really all about automation, mobility, and all the new technology that's driving and what will be autonomous vehicles in the supporting systems. And right in the middle of all this is a familiar company, IBM, so really excited to have Sachin Lula on the global automotive lead, Watson IoT, from AutoLab. First off, welcome. Thank you, Jeff, thank you for having me. So I don't know that a lot of people have thought of IBM as really being so involved in automotive, but you guys have been making a ton of announcements lately. You had the GM, or excuse me, the General Motors CEO on it, World of Watson, making a lot of announcements at CES, so you guys are fully into this automotive thing. Absolutely, I think automotive is one of our biggest bets in terms of the industry we are going after. And as you probably heard from the Ginny and Mary Barra announcement a few months back, in auto industry is going through a major transformation. Like Mary rightly said, we'll see more change in the next five to 10 years than we've seen in the last 50 to 100 years in automotive. So feel grateful to be part of the auto industry at this point in time. Yeah, it's interesting, because it's changes in the way the cars operate, it's changes in the propulsion systems, it's changes in ownership models, there's changes all over the place. But what I find interesting and kind of the vibe here of the show is where you would think that would be a huge threat and people would be cowering under the covers. It seems like the automotive manufacturers have taken this as an opportunity to reinvent themselves. It's kind of this unnatural catalyst that they've seemed to have embraced and really run in hard with. Is that kind of your experience with the auto companies you work with? Yes, absolutely. I think they all recognize this as an opportunity as well as a challenge in terms of how quickly they can transform as the consumer needs are evolving in the digital world we all live in, especially with urbanization becoming a major trend. So I think all OEMs recognize the opportunity, the industry boundaries are blurring as we speak between technology companies and the traditional auto industry. And I think capabilities we of IBM have to offer really a resonating with the marketplace, which is why you've seen so many major announcements from us in the last six to nine months. Right, and automotive is such a great, visible IoT wearable thing. We can't see what's going on a lot of factories. We can't see the IoT that's involved in medical imaging, but we can all see our vehicles. We have passionate relationships with our vehicles. So it's a really kind of pointy into the spear, if you will, of this whole IoT revolution. Yes, I think that's a good point you make. I mean, two things about auto, right? I mean, everyone gets cars or vehicles. It's the second most expensive purchase you'll make in your lifetime. And, you know, an exciting one. Everyone cherishes the first car they buy or any car that buy for that matter. Like I said, it's just an exciting industry to be in at this point. So what is AutoLab specifically? What do you guys do at AutoLab? What's kind of your mission? You know, AutoLab is our incubation engine to take all of IBM's digital innovation capabilities and take them in a very rapid, agile manner to co-create with our clients. So this is very unique to us because, again, you can imagine with IBM and how big we are instead of going to market independently as different business units. What the AutoLab and my team does on a global basis is really package all that innovation and bring that to all of our clients, like I said, in a very agile and consumable manner. You know, let's take Oli, our local motors collaboration as an example. I know we made a big splash with Oli because it's the world's first 3D printed, autonomous self-driving minibus with Watson inside. And, you know, all of that happened in a matter of 12 weeks with the AutoLab team, jointly with local motors. 12 weeks? 12 weeks, that's the pace. So what happened in 12 weeks? That is unbelievable. So in 12 weeks, you know, local motors has done a great job crowd sourcing vehicle designs. We did the same with our Watson technology, crowd sourcing ideas on use cases with the Oli, developing it, and then actually going to market with it in 12 weeks for the launch in Washington DC. One of the things we did is, as we developed the cognitive writing experience, as we call it, we opened it up to all IBMers. And the first day itself, we got 10,000 interactions with the Oli Watson application and got to fine-tune it at a very, very rapid pace. Again, giving it a very unique personality, which is what makes Oli, in my opinion, unique. You know, after the launch of the Oli and when my wife and four-year-old saw it, my wife's first comment was, hey, I'm not scared to step on to an autonomous vehicle anymore. And you know, my son calls me Daddy Cool now and said, oh, Daddy, so. Big credit, you're going to have to go to the school, right? And present to the class and bring the Oli with you. Yeah, so thanks to IBM and what we've done together with local motors. Right. The other thing I think is pretty interesting is we've been talking about Watson and Cognitive at IBM shows for a long time. We go to a lot of IBM shows. But now we're really starting to see applications that are really tangible and you can even sit on them in the marketplace. So that's got to be exciting to start getting that stuff out in real, simple, easy to understand use cases. I think you use the keyword simple. I think simplicity is powerful. You know, as most of the conversations go, the typical question is, can you tell me how do I monetize the data in my vehicle? Everyone wants to go after monetization and my simple mantra is personalization leads to monetization and not the other way around. And that's where Watson and Cognitive technology comes into play because if you can truly personalize with cognitive systems and technologies because they understand reason, learn, and at the same time have the ability to communicate in natural language, that's when you change the game. So as an example, if I know you're an extrovert or introvert, I'll communicate to you very differently. If I know you're buying behavior, if I know you stop and pick up a cup of Starbucks coffee every Monday before work, that's when I'll prompt you to with the latest offer from Starbucks or if you get a tall mocha every time, I'll recommend you get one and maybe push a coupon to you and send you to make that purchase. So it's all about personalizing that experience and that's what we as IBM want to own inside the vehicle along with our OEM and other business partners. Exciting time, Sachin. Oh, absolutely. And you're the coolest dad your four-year-old has, so that's good for you. That's a big bonus, that's the icing on the cake. Oh, absolutely. You'll definitely be bringing, you know, dad comes from work and bring the Ollie to the school. All right, well thanks for taking a few minutes, exciting times and enjoy the rest of the show. Thank you so much for having me. All right, he's Sachin, I'm Jeff Rick. You're watching theCUBE, we're at the North American International Auto Show. Thanks for watching.