Good morning.
Technology moves slow, then fast. Twelve years ago, an IBM computer named Watson defeated two champions of the TV game Jeopardy. It was a stunning demonstration of the power of artificial intelligence. But subsequent events made clear that A.I. still had a ways to go before it would transform the world of business.
This morning, IBM announces a new product, IBM watsonx, that CEO Arvind Krishna told me last week “is the unlock for the A.I. productivity we have been talking about.” It follows on the heels of the extraordinary success of Open AI’s ChatGPT. While ChatGPT is an open-source A.I. model that draws on massive amounts of publicly-available data, what most businesses need is something that will let them apply the same technology to their proprietary data, without compromising its privacy. IBM believes it has developed the answer. Says Krishna: “With IBM watsonx, clients can quickly train and deploy custom A.I. capabilities across their entire business, all while retaining full control of their data.”
The approach pairs with the company’s focus on “hybrid cloud,” a strategy that recognizes companies are willing to put some of their data in the cloud, but wish to protect other data on premise. You can read more about it here.
And by the way, A.I. announcements these days are happening in waves. Also today, Salesforce is announcing the launch of Tableau GPT, which will use the power of generative A.I. to create data visualizations that provide automated insights and analytics. Tableau CEO Ryan Aytay said the new tools will “make data and analytics more accessible to many.”
Separately, Fortune hosted a conversation yesterday about what it takes to be a great place to work, featuring three CEOs who have ranked high in recent years on our 100 Best Companies to Work For list, in conjunction with our partner UKG. A few excerpts:
“Your employees' health and well-being, both physically and mentally, is so critical to your company…If you get it right and really help your employees in this journey, it’s going to make you more productive.”
—Jim Kavanaugh, cofounder and CEO, World Wide Technology
“We don’t require employees to be in the office. We really allow them to choose what's best for them, what’s best for their team…This has been a real competitive advantage. When we announced this, the applicant pool for our new jobs shot up 30% almost overnight. And our attrition…has been probably half of what it is across the industry, and better than it was pre-pandemic.”
—Brian Doubles, CEO, Synchrony
“Companies that are purpose-led perform better financially. Consumers are doing research all the time, and they want to be connected with a company they're proud of. More importantly, employees want to have an impact, and they want their work to be meaningful. And so [purpose] is really important.”
—Tricia Griffith, CEO, The Progressive Corporation
“Putting people first leads to outstanding customer satisfaction and financial performance.”
—Michael Bush, CEO, Great Place to Work
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
