From Mohit Parasher President, HARMAN Professional

I am excited to share some very special news with you. Recently, I was at the IBM World of Watson conference in Las Vegas, where I went on stage with Harriet Green, the leader of IBM’s Internet of Things (IoT), for a keynote announcing a strategic partnership between HARMAN and IBM. In this partnership, we are looking to bring together HARMAN’s end-to-end solutions with IBM Watson’s cognitive computing capabilities.

Together, HARMAN and IBM are looking to use audio, video, lighting, IoT and cognitive computing to improve the lives of workers, consumers and patients around the world. We are announcing this exciting partnership after the completion of a successful test of a prototype JBL speaker at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. This test showed that, with voice commands, a patient can control their environment, answer questions and alleviate an already overburdened healthcare staff.

Of course, there are obvious and immediate applications for voice-enabled cognitive rooms by HARMAN in hotels, hospitals and conference rooms, but you can also imagine the possibilities in practically every enterprise and entertainment market we serve.

Our solution is much more than a talking search engine. It’s an expert: your concierge, your nurse, your executive assistant that anticipates what you need, answers your questions, knows what follow-up questions to ask, connects the dots for you between different sets of data and helps you control the environment around you. It makes life a little easier.

Be proud. This opportunity with IBM exemplifies not only the power of our complete system solutions story, but also how significant your work is in improving end-users’ experience with our products.

I invite you to watch the keynote and the pilot program videos below for a better idea of the many possibilities that this endeavor is expected to bring.

Watch the keynote speech here