 Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, 10,000 journalists here for a couple of days before they led in a bunch of partners, then they led in a bunch of public. It's really quite an incredible show. Our first year here, we're excited to be here, but we're seeing a lot of our friends and IBM is one of them. So we're really excited to have Joanna Penya-Bickley. She's the Chief Creative Officer for IBM IX. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Absolutely. It's really exciting times, don't you think? Absolutely. And just at IBM World of Watson, we do interconnect the whole bunch of other shows and there was a huge announcement with Jenny on stage with the CEO of GM and you're really a big part of that announcement. So for the folks that missed it, what was the big announcement and what are you guys doing with GM? Absolutely. So the big announcement at World of Watson was that IBM and General Motors have partnered to put Watson inside of OnStar as a part of an offering called OnStarGo. The purpose behind the entire partnership is truly to kind of redefine mobility as cognitive mobility. Do so in a way that's actually improving people's lives by kind of reinventing all that time that we spend in the car. Right, right. Making the car a connected platform. So it's interesting to watch how the Watson is kind of spreading its tentacles, if you will, into all types of areas and really as the fundamental driver behind the IBM cognitive computing. But what specifically are you doing and what types of things is Watson doing in this application? You know, in this application, what's really exciting is that there's a couple of phases as we roll it out. The first one is actually giving light to all that dark data in the car. Think about it. Your car today is a data warehouse on wheels. It's meeting a ton of information, but we've never really used that information. We've never really uncovered it and actually exposed it to the driver in a way that is actually going to enhance the drive. It's always been kind of the red light on the dashboard or your gas is about to go. But imagine if your car was self-healing. Imagine if we were able to really- That would have been good last week. I spent a lot of money at the shop. Self-healing. Self-healing, right? You know, as we get to autonomous around this self-driving, there are kind of six flavors of where we really want to bring on-star go to the next level. And it's really about having a cognitive co-pilot that's there with you, no matter what nomadic device you're on. So whether it's your mobile phone, right? The vehicle in it of itself or any moving device. So that's the exciting part about it is that we see the connected car as a part of a connected ecosystem that is there to be in service to the driver versus the other way around, right? Today we're kind of in service to our cars. We have to, you know, they're not as smart as they could be. And I think that's the part of where we are going with mobility. I actually fundamentally think that the way that we have approached the marketplace is actually very different because mobility for us is about, think of all the modes of personal transportation. Right, right. That we're gonna get to. We're surrounded by them right here. We're surrounded by them right here. Scooters and all kinds of things running around. Exactly. So when you think about go modes, right? Those modes of transportation, you should be able to have a smart go mode in any way, shape, or form. And for us, Watson with on-star is going to be able to enable that. So in the implementation, so Watson will be sitting back at the data center that powers on-star, and that's where you're doing kind of all the cognitive work? Is that kind of how it's going to work? Absolutely. We actually have design teams that sit in the Renssen today that are designing with the on-star teams, thinking a little bit about how do you make that cognitive assistant more human and do so in a way that actually, we fundamentally believe we have an opportunity to reinvent those 92 minutes that we're stuck in our cars every day. Right, right. I emphasize stuck, because today what drivers told us was really an important part of this, which was no matter how much connectivity they've actually had in the vehicle, they actually feel like they're disconnected because they have to put their phones down. Right, right. But if I enabled the vehicle to easily make those connections, do so in a safe way for them, it actually gets rid of what they call FOMO, right? Fear of missing out. Right, right. And actually reconnect them to the people, the places and the brands that they love the most. It's interesting how on-star has evolved from, you know, whoever thought it up in the first place was really progressive to put a direct communication system in the car. But as you said, there's so much data that comes out of it and such an interesting platform now to do so much more than was probably ever in the original spec. Oh my gosh, you know what, it was actually visionary. And I think that's why the partnership works. If you think about the assets and the approach that IBM is bringing, right, not just analytics, but cognitive analytics and doing so in a way that, you know, we are leveraging our rich history in telematics and understanding that data. And then what on-star is bringing is 20 years of connectivity experience. It's been going for that long. It has. That's amazing. That's not a fact, on-star is actually just celebrated. It's 20 year anniversary. Wow, who knew? All right, so that's cool. But what is IX? I bet there's more to IX than just on-star. Absolutely. So IBM IX is actually fundamentally the next generation of experience design within IBM. What's really exciting is that day in and day out, we get to take on cognitive design and experience design where we are actually transforming business in exciting times. We kind of like to believe and say that it's actually never been a more exciting time to be a maker. It's also never been a more tumultuous time in business. And so you need a new kind of partner. And so IX was actually developed to be that new kind of partner that's going to come in, that's going to bring these brilliant renegades who are, you know, business consultants, designers, data scientists, writers, artists, architects who are going to come around a business problem and really look at it in a very different way. And so are you kind of an independent SWAT team, if you will, or that's probably the wrong team? You know, kind of a team that goes and then helps within the business units and the verticals to come up with some of these really new age creative ideas? You know, we do a little bit of that, but actually more importantly, we're on the front lines with IBM clients every single day. General Motors happens to be one of many of them, but whether that is Citibank, as well as we do a ton in sports and entertainment as well. Right, really exciting for you to take the vision of cognitive computing and we hear about Watson all the time, but now it's really starting to reveal itself in applications that people can understand and touch and feel and start to understand what is it and why is it so important? Right, I think what's an exciting time because I think that there's a couple of things that are going on. Yes, you know, being able to actually touch Watson in a way that's going to improve driving, but I also think it's about augmenting intelligence. This is not about replacing the driver per se or even kind of replacing the human. This is actually about giving drivers superhuman strengths while they're on the go so they can navigate through that terrible traffic, be able to order things ahead of time. I kind of think about the dinner hour when you're stuck in traffic and you know, it's that moment where you go, oh goodness, I have got to go cook dinner. I probably got 45 minutes to an hour commute in front of me. What could I do to make my life a little bit easier? And so that's the kind of challenge that we're putting Watson to, to actually improve people's lives and do so in a really remarkable way. And I love that you used augmented intelligence. So we've got a little debate going on internally. Is it artificial intelligence or is it augmented intelligence? And really it came from Abhimedi so there's nothing artificial about it. This is real intelligence. On the other hand, it's not human intelligence, but it is really augmenting. It's kind of like the AR, augmented reality versus just pure virtual reality. And there's a real benefit to the two of those things working together. Absolutely, and I think one of the things that we say is actually really being able to help people make better decisions. I want you to think about all the information that is out there. I think something as simple as, think about your car's owner's manual. Have you ever sat down when you purchased a brand new car, at least a brand new car and actually read through that manual? You cannot ask me that question. Right, come on. That is not fair. It's not on the script. Of course not, nobody reads it manual. Why did they even print them anymore? Well, just imagine being able to use that as a basis and a corpus of information so that what Watson is actually doing is actually helping you access more of the features of the vehicle so that you actually deliver more value to that driver. There's so much. We think about all the technology that goes into vehicles today and the reality is drivers only using 60% of that. So imagine, there's this feeling that I'm not really getting all the value and one of the things that we're putting Watson to work at is actually delivering more of that value to the driver in a way that if I get a flat tire, that I actually don't need to be a mechanic to change it and Watson's going to guide me through it. And those are the kinds of experiences that I think that fundamentally change and revolutionize what using a vehicle will be in the future. That's interesting because I saw a video, one of the things here at the show where they have teenagers that go out with the new car buyers to teach them how to use all the things that they have, right? But may or may not hit them all, may or may not remember. And really it's the contextual relativity that makes that stuff so valuable. I only need to know when to change a tire, when the tire's flat. The tire's flat, that's right. Take my brain power when I should be learning about how to operate the radio or the GPS or whatever. Well, very exciting stuff and any like just crazy discoveries as you go through this process with GM and OnStar that they discovered that they had no idea that was in there. You know, one of the things I think that we look at, you know, some of the problems that have arised, we actually have an aging population. And I think this is a really important way where we fundamentally believe that we want to try to keep that aging population on the go much longer, do so in a more cohesive way. And here was where augmenting that intelligence was actually going to be able to do that. So we'll be introducing a number of features that make it easier to use the vehicle rather than more complex. Right, right. And a huge application for autonomous vehicles that people forget about when they talk about they like to drive. Well, not when you're 85. That's right. You don't want grandpa and grandma driving. That's right. All right. Well, Joanna, thanks for taking a few minutes out of your day. Absolutely. We look forward to seeing you at the next IBM event and getting an update on what's going on. Absolutely. Thank you. All right. Joanna, I'm Jeff Frick. You're watching theCUBE. We're at the North American International Auto Show. Thanks for watching.