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IBM continued to make major strides on its artificial intelligence (AI), cloud and security initiatives in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, according to CFO Martin Schroeter.

The company’s results for the quarter “reflect the success we’re having” in those and other IBM “strategic imperative” business areas and the investments that it has been making to “drive that shift,” he said on a Jan. 19 earnings call.

IBM profit inched up to $4.5 billion in the quarter from $4.46 billion a year earlier. Total revenue dipped to $21.8 billion from $22 billion. But revenue from strategic imperatives grew, with cloud revenue up 33%, analytics revenue up 9% and mobile revenue up 16%. Among its business segments, cognitive solutions revenue grew 1.4% to $5.3 billion, while technology services and cloud platforms revenue increased 1.7% to $9.3 billion.

IBM’s “stabilizing” revenue was one of a few positive signs that the company’s “transformation is working,” Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty said in a research note Jan. 20. IBM stock was up 1.8% at just under $170 that afternoon.

Growth areas in the fourth quarter included Watson Internet of Things (IoT), where IBM launched new industry solutions targeting manufacturing and insurance and new collaborations with clients including BMW, Schroeter said on the call. IBM “more than doubled” the number of new clients and the number of developers on its IoT platform, he said. He added that security “also contributed to growth in the quarter, driven by” areas including data security and security intelligence.

IBM ended the year with $13.7 billion of cloud revenue — 17% of IBM’s total revenue, he said, pointing out cloud was the strongest-performer among its strategic imperatives. All the strategic imperative areas combined generated $33 billion of revenue in 2016 — up 14% from the prior year — and accounted for 41% of total revenue, he said.

Schroeter also said: “The debate about whether artificial intelligence is real is over, and we’re getting to work to solve real business problems.” IBM, he said, is “using our tremendous industry expertise to build vertical solutions and train Watson on specific industry domains.” The company is “amassing these capabilities, because you need more than public data and automation algorithms to solve real problems like improving healthcare outcomes or navigating the banking regulatory environment,” he told analysts, adding: “In this new phase, data, and the business model around data matters, industry matters, and time matters. And that’s why Watson is the AI platform for business.”

It is also “becoming very clear that as IT moves to the cloud and as business processes are delivered as digital services, it is essential they are enterprise-strength and that the transactions are trusted by all parties involved,” Schroeter said, telling analysts: “That’s where the blockchain comes in. It’s a technology that brings together shared ledgers with smart contracts, to allow the transfer of any asset, whether a physical asset like a shipping container, a financial asset like a bond, or a digital asset like music, across any business network. Blockchain increases transparency, auditability and trust. It reduces risk, and it can drive tremendous efficiencies. Bottom line: blockchain will help to fundamentally reengineer business processes and improve outcomes.”

IBM is “building a complete blockchain platform and we have already worked with over 300 clients to pioneer blockchain for business,” he noted. Many of those clients are in the financial services sector, but he said the application for blockchain goes “well beyond financial services.” As an example, he pointed out that IBM is collaborating with Walmart to “improve the way food is tracked, transported and sold to consumers across China.”

Last year, IBM built blockchain platforms and services, and in 2017, he said, “we expect to start scaling blockchain networks.”