Before attending CONNECTIONS™Europe in Amsterdam, Ashley Hathaway, Senior Developer Evanglist of IBM Watson, answered several industry questions:

Where do you feel the largest opportunity is for the smart home industry in Europe?

Certainly our devices are now helping us manage our resources more wisely, automate mundane tasks, and provide information about our usage. There are certainly many moving parts now and any way we can streamline the process or continue to improve the UX is a great opportunity. From bots to data management or passive notifications, any way we can help consumers make better decisions and integrate naturally into our flow is a huge opportunity.

What challenges does Europe face with rolling out new smart home products and services?

To me security is going to be huge with this one. For one, educating the public on how devices manage their data and two securing the devices themselves. Obviously as devices become more mainstream and the early majority of users adopt smart home devices things like integration will be a problem, but probably more than that tailoring the messaging and educating users who might not understand the technology on the value will be really important.

We are looking forward to hearing you present, but what are you most looking forward to about the show this year?

I'm really looking forward to seeing how AI and bots are integrated into products. I'm also very interested in niche use-cases and products that are meant for a very specific audience.

Hathaway will speak on the session “Personalizing the User Experience: Innovative Interfaces” alongside speakers from TiVo and Technicolor.

For more information on CONNECTIONS™ Europe and how your company can become involved, visit www.connectionseurope.com.