SEAT, IBM & Watson

One more thing about SEAT after yesterday’s announcement at the Mobile World Congress about its Minimó micromobility vehicle: Today it and IBM announced that the companies are developing the “Mobility Advisor,” a mobile app that will run on 4G/5G networks and utilize IBM Watson AI technology.

SEAT president Luca de Meo introducing the Minimó in Barcelona

The system is connected to the IBM Cloud, so it has up-to-date information about what’s going on in the environment, and it uses IBM Watson Machine Learning, so it learns the user’s preferences.

Then based on where the user may be going, it not only determines the most efficient route predicated on conditions (weather, traffic jams), but it even recommends whether the individual might want to use more than one form of transportation: perhaps drive to a particular point and then make the rest of the journey with a SEAT scooter (seriously). Or even on foot.

When driving isn’t a good idea, Watson might recommend a scooter

Juan Ramon Gutierrez Villar, Industry Solutions Leader, IBM Global Markets, said, “With the roll-out of 5G networks in cities in the coming years, the possibilities for transforming the driver experience are limitless.”