Watson app helps you find trendy gifts

It's great at Jeopardy, but can it help you find the perfect holiday gift?

IBM's cognitive computing system known as Watson is in the shopping business with the app IBM Watson Trend, which pulls together trending gifts across a handful of categories.

So far, it's a useful experience, helping consumers find that hot gift for the holiday. Hopefully, over time, the app becomes more robust since it's thin on the variety of categories it covers.

Watson Trend's layout is clean upon launch, listing emerging trends along with Trend Scores breaking down the popularity of items. According to the app, trends are determined by Watson scouring the Internet for discussions about purchases. Those discussions are then organized and transformed into a Trend Score.

Watson also goes a step further to explain why something is trending. Let's take Samsung TVs as an example, which boasts a Trend Score of 100. After clicking on the category, a page lists "the story behind in the trend." In the case of Samsung TVs, it cites the high customer satisfaction with the devices. Users can also view Trend Scores, and "what people are saying" about the product.

Users can view items in the main field, or break down by Tech, Toys and Health. They can save topics to keep tabs and review how its Trend Score is rising or falling.

Once inside a topic, users can click Buy Now, which redirects them to a Google shopping page. They can also share items through Facebook, Twitter or email.

IBM Watson Trend (available for iOS and Android) is a helpful aid for consumers wanting to stay on top of the hottest holiday gifts. It's unfortunate the app doesn't offer additional categories like Fashion or Home to give shoppers a much more robust experience.

Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.