IBM Watson unveils the AI-infused Watson Assistant. It's no Alexa or Siri

Edward C. Baig | USA TODAY

IBM Watson is seeking to join the exclusive club occupied by Siri, Alexa and the Google Assistant.

At the IBM Think 2018 conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, IBM announced the Watson Assistant, an artificial intelligent adviser that the company describes as an “AI enterprise assistant.”

“Enterprise” is the key clue to avoid thinking of Watson Assistant has another Alexa or Siri but rather a new product tailored to IBM Watson partners. In that sense, Watson Assistant will mostly assume a behind-the-scenes role, at least where consumers are concerned.

“We’re building this Watson Assistant offering so that automakers and hotels and electronics companies and other companies can put an assistant in their product or service in a way that brings real value to end users,” says Bret Greenstein, global vice president of Watson Internet of Things at IBM.

So don't expect to summon the Watson Assistant by barking out “Hey, Watson” or some similar trigger phrase. "You're not going to be talking to Watson," Greenstein says. "You're going to be talking to BMW or your Whirlpool appliance or whoever implements this for you."

You might talk to your hotel room, though. For example, you may utter something along the lines of, “It’s too bright in here” and the lights will automatically dim, or the blinds may close. Or you may indicate that you’re hungry and receive dining suggestions based on past visits, with those recommendations coming in via voice or maybe text.

A U.K. company called Chameleon Technology, which manufacture displays for global smart meters in the connected home, has created a digital assistant powered by the Watson Assistant called I-VIE that will set temperatures based around the time you’re scheduled to arrive and leave the house.

And a robot in the Munich airport is answering questions from travelers with Watson's assistance.

“The technology is about understanding people, their words, their language, their tone, their intent," Greenstein says.

Under some circumstances, Watson promises to chime in proactively, perhaps to tell you that the tire pressure in your car is low, or since you have an appointment in an hour, you might want to fill up the gas tank before you head over there.

BMW and Harman are among the partners working with IBM Watson on various automotive solutions.

Of course, knowing all there is to know about you raises privacy and security concerns.

Greenstein says IBM itself doesn't use any of the data for marketing purposes, and that data is encrypted and secured in the cloud. What's left unclear is what IBM's partners could do with the information. The suggestion is that before you opt in for the type of services that the Watson Assistant helps enable, make sure you trust the company or brand that has access to all that data.

“Our clients own their own data, BMW or Hotel A or B. ... A lot of people have drawn a line and say, 'I don’t really want to integrate Alexa deeply into the car because then Amazon knows everything about all the data in the car.’”

All the same, Greenstein doesn’t view Alexa as a Watson Assistant rival, though Amazon itself designs expanding Alexa into cars and businesses.

Keeping that in mind, the Watson Assistant, along with Alexa, Siri and the Google Assistant, can all be members of the same exclusive club.

Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow USA TODAY Personal Tech Columnist @edbaig on Twitter