We review products independently, but we may earn affiliate commissions from buying links on this page. Terms of use. Businesses are experiencing a variety of shifts—cloud, AI, blockchain, quantum computing, and changes in business models—all at once, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty said in an interview at the Gartner Symposium in Orlando earlier this week. "You have to change the way you work, because this isn't going to stop," she said. But, she told Gartner's Dennis Gaughan and Daryl Plummer, it's important for businesses to "know what must endure, and know what must change." For IBM what must endure is the goal of working to change the way the world works, and a focus on being an enterprise company, and not a consumer company, Rometty said. Data will be the difference between the winners and the losers, Rometty said, and while everyone talks about big data, only about 20 percent of it is readily searchable. Enterprises control the other 80 percent, and if these enterprises could do something with this data, they could become "the incumbent disrupter." IBM's work with Watson has convinced Rometty that artificial intelligence is "going to change 100 percent of jobs, 100 percent of industries, and 100 percent of professions," and she emphasized that AI for business is different than consumer AI. There are many AI experiments that haven't been broadly rolled out, and IBM has learned that in most places, it isn't a technology issue, but rather about change management. "This is about changing how people do their work," she added. For example, in health care it's more about re-imagining the workflow, because the last thing providers need is more technology to get in their way. Trust is essential, so IBM is working on AI that is explainable, with methods to determine if models are biased. It doesn't really matter who trained the model if you're looking for music, Rometty said, but it does matter when it comes to oncology. Rometty also said an understanding of a particular domain is important, and noted that, for example, the term "mud" means something specific in oil and gas applications. AI's impact on jobs will be so enormous, Rometty said, that we must implement these technologies carefully. To that end, IBM has three transparency and trust principles. First, the purpose of new technology is to augment people, not replace them. Second, data belongs to its owner and its creators, who own the algorithms and insights, and IBM's business model won't conflict with that of its customer. Third, new technologies need to be explainable, so they don't frighten people. On cloud computing, Rometty described everyone as on "the journey to the hybrid cloud." She talked about IBM's focus on "multi-cloud," with new offerings introduced this week designed to take an application and manage it in any cloud, whether that's on a customer's premises, in IBM private clouds, or in public clouds. She said the "easy stuff"—mainly infrastructure as a service—is over, but that this accounted for only 15 percent of workloads. The other 85 percent is the "hard stuff." The average IBM customer uses six clouds, she disclosed, and some use as many as 15 to 20. Rometty talked about co-creating applications and clouds with customers, and said that the company runs things like American Airlines' website, and that it has more VMware and SAP in its cloud than anyone else. (In another meeting I had at the conference, Robin Hernandez, who runs IBM Private Cloud, reinforced that IBM's focus remains on the business and high-value applications, with a new Multi-Cloud manager and a great emphasis on openness, so that clients aren't "locked in" to a specific cloud.) Asked about the biggest lessons she has learned as CEO, Rometty said that while IBM knew it had to change fast, "if you kept saying 'faster, faster' you exhaust people." Instead, she said, "it's leadership's job to change how work is done." IBM has learned a lot from smaller startups, and is now a huge advocate of "design thinking," because even business-to-business products need to be easy to use. While everyone says they are "agile," this needs to be a real strategy, and must include a different approach to development, as well as new tools, new real estate, and new feedback and appraisal measures. Rometty also addressed diversity, and said that while IBM has a long history of hiring based on aptitude—including equal pay and opportunity for women—it has been focusing more on inclusion, with new programs like "returnships," which are designed to help women return to the workforce. It's not just about doing the right thing, she said, but about getting the right outcome. "A more diverse workforce, a more inclusive workforce, creates a better product," she said. Rometty was asked about IBM's work in blockchain and quantum computing, two emerging areas. Companies should start to prioritize blockchain now, she said, and noted that IBM has learned that networks are more valuable than point-to-point systems. IBM is working on blockchain for food safety, and this work includes four large customers (she named Walmart, Carrefour, and Unilever); on blockchain for shipping, including three of the five biggest shipping companies; and blockchain for banking in Europe. It matters who the anchors of the blockchain are, and what the business model is, she said, but she stressed that one company can't own a blockchain, because of perception. Asked to predict when the majority of global commerce will flow through a blockchain network, she said that it could happen within 10 years. Rometty believes quantum computing won't have a big impact for 5 years, but added that IBM does currently have a live 20-qubit offering, which has been used by 100,000 people for 6 million experiments. It will soon have a 50-qubit offering, which should be enough to do modeling for some things that now require physical bio labs. Quantum computing that breaks traditional encryption is further off, but she said IBM is working on lattice encryption now, so that it will be ready when the time comes.

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