Key Points
- Google is using AI to help protect and conserve 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030, leveraging environmental data and AI technologies to help nature and people flourish together.
- The company is building technologies to give everyone an unprecedented view of our planet, turning petabytes of satellite, climate, and ecosystem data into a single, consistent picture of change.
- Google is partnering with local experts and communities to put powerful tools in the hands of those who can drive on-the-ground impact and help accelerate their work to protect and restore nature.
As a tech journalist, I’m excited to share the latest insights from Google on how the company is using AI to empower people to protect and restore nature. With the World Wildlife Fund estimating a 73% decline in wildlife populations since 1970, and the World Economic Forum ranking biodiversity loss as one of the greatest risks to global stability, it’s clear that action is needed. Google has been providing a clearer view of our changing planet with tools like Google Earth and Google Earth Engine for over two decades. Now, the company is working harder than ever to support the worldwide initiative to protect and conserve 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030.
One way Google is accelerating global action for our planet is by visualizing our planet and connecting the dots. The company’s recently-launched Google Earth AI is built on decades of modeling the world, combined with state-of-the-art predictive models and advanced reasoning capabilities. This enables enterprises, cities, and nonprofits to achieve a deeper understanding of our planet and create powerful insights that previously required complex analytics and years of research.
Google is also using cutting-edge AI approaches to synthesize complex data and reveal new insights into the past, present, and future of our planet. For example, the company’s Species Distribution Modeling project uses AI to create high-resolution maps of where species live, helping conservationists make critical decisions like how to best protect endangered wildlife and their habitats. Additionally, Google has released a new paper and the first dataset dedicated to training deep learning models to predict deforestation risk, opening the door to opportunities to prevent deforestation before it happens.
Perhaps most importantly, Google is putting technology in the hands of local experts and partnering with people on the front lines to help accelerate their work. Through Google Arts & Culture’s Forest Listeners experiment, the company is inviting everyone to help scientists identify hidden species by listening to sounds from Brazil’s rainforests and classifying the data they hear to help train Google DeepMind’s AI model. This helps enable measurement, preservation, and restoration of the rainforests’ biodiversity. By empowering local communities and putting powerful tools in the hands of those who can drive on-the-ground impact, Google is helping to create a better future for our planet. As individuals, we can get involved and learn more about these efforts, and consider how we can use technology to make a positive impact on the environment.
You can also check out our list of the best Gmail Extensions, TikTok Extensions & the best Ai Extensions for Chrome.