The First Thinking Sculpture. Inspired By Gaudi, Created With Watson.

Faced with the daunting task of creating an unforgettable experience for MWC17 attendees, we found inspiration in one of the greatest artists of all time, Antonio Gaudi. Based on his belief that a great piece of art is never finished, we challenged Watson to build on Gaudi’s legacy.

We fed Watson hundreds of thousands of images, articles and words on Gaudi and his architecture. Watson then uncovered unique themes that inspired unexpected materials, shapes and colors of the sculpture.

The result? The First Thinking Sculpture, inspired by Gaudi and created with Watson. A dazzling display of AI at work, pushing the boundaries of creativity in the form of an always evolving sculpture, continuing Gaudi’s legacy and giving the people of MWC17 hands-on access to the creative capabilities of Watson, helping them reimagine their business in ways they never thought possible.

Over a six-week period, we teamed up with Watson to create the First Thinking Sculpture.

First, we fed Watson hundreds of articles and images about Gaudi and Catalonian culture. Visual Recognition, AlchemyLanguage APIs and the Color Theory Tool were used to inspire the sculpture’s design by identifying materials, colors and shapes unique to Gaudi’s architectural style. Results were given to architects to inspire the design of the booth so it reflected insights provided by Watson.

Next, we tapped into the buzz and personality of the event to influence reactivity and movement of the sculpture. Using IBM’s ‘Insights for Twitter’ and ‘Watson Tone Analyzer’ APIs, we extract tone and sentiment from tweets to reveal fluctuations in feelings regarding Artificial Intelligence and other hot conference topics.

Finally, we gave people the ability to see how Watson works, allowing them to interact and explore the real-time data behind each movement via touchscreens.

“If there was an award for the best booth at MWC 2017, IBM would have won it.” - MWC host, GSMA

Because of the First Thinking Sculpture, millions of people now understand what Watson can do.

IBM broke through massive conference noise, gathering thousands of new business contacts (+22% YoY) and progressing in-person meetings with clients, press and analysts (+40% YoY).

Outside conference walls, social conversation was wildly positive (86% positive sentiment), and earned media conversations extended our reach to 7 million people. Additional support from paid social generated 40 million impressions (an increase of 317% YoY) and drove a 281% YoY increase in traffic to IBM.com.

Even better, event brand ambassadors shared stories of people stopping in their tracks, not just to see the sculpture but to ask what the technology could do for them and how to get started - the very types of questions IBM wanted to hear.