IBM's Watson Plays Chef in a Consumer-Facing Culinary Campaign

The Cognitive Computing System Makes Meals Out of Challenging Ingredients

Published On
May 02, 2017

Editor's Pick

IBM's Watson is now taking on the culinary world in a new campaign from Ogilvy Paris. A new ad shows how IBM's AI and cognitive computing system can come up some oddly-named yet presumably delicious dishes, even when it's faced with some challenging constraints.

The idea, create out of Ogilvy Paris, aims to make the general consumer as familiar with Watson as the tech world is through a lens most folks could relate to -- food.

"To create a challenge for the AI Chef Watson, we added the constraint of having Watson come up with recipes where the 4 main ingredients always had to start with the letters E, A, T & S," said Ogilvy Paris ECD Susan Westre, who oversees the IBM global creative direction, in a statement.

Watson then went on to turn ingredients such as eggplant, anise, tomatoes and salmon as well as eggs, annatto, thyme and strawberries into dishes like Elderberry Tiramisu, Egg Seafood Salad and Easter Egg Cake.

The agency tapped food artists to create typography out of the various ingredients spelling out "EATS," and Chef Watson's creations were shared over social media, encouraging consumers to try out Chef Watson for their own "cognitive cooking."