As far as I understand (and I have only passing knowledge on this, as we've been evaluating machine learning technologies for our startup) IBM Watson is just a

As far as I understand (and I have only passing knowledge on this, as we've been evaluating machine learning technologies for our startup) IBM Watson is just a set of APIs you can use to build your own solution, and the APIs themselves are not top-of-the-line (Google's are.) The other day I saw a TV ad for Watson for the first time: the ad showed a bunch of aeronautical engineers who instead of having to take all kinds of measurements of airflow around a hull or who knows what else (the TV was muted) now sat behind a single computer that would do the whole thing for them. It was such bullshit, I couldn't believe my eyes. Imagine Amazon promoting SES as this amazing tool that'd automatically send marketing emails and create a marketing funnel and drive user acquisition cost down by a factor of 100X, without you having to do anything. That's the level of vaporware they are selling.