I remember when Microsoft .NET came out and I hated it because they named it something that had no relation to what it was. The product had nothing to do with the Internet, but the Internet was a big new fad back then and marketing wanted to latch onto that.
Today .NET is a great product ecosystem and a huge success, except for the horribly awkward name.
I don't know if they'll ever regret naming it Watson, but latching onto the AI craze isn't necessarily a losing strategy as long as the products are good and successful. Even if they have nothing to do with AI.
It seems to be a common theme with projects in big companies: somebody comes up with a good project idea and a catchy name. As it gets resources and management attention, other departments re-brand their long-time toy projects with being a substantial part of the 'catchy-name' project's vision. At some point nobody knows anymore what it was all about. 'SDN', 'Cloud', 'Watson', '.NET' are all examples of this.
Today .NET is a great product ecosystem and a huge success, except for the horribly awkward name.
I don't know if they'll ever regret naming it Watson, but latching onto the AI craze isn't necessarily a losing strategy as long as the products are good and successful. Even if they have nothing to do with AI.