By pillars
AI for the environment
AI that warns of floods and heat, watches over forests and oceans, and helps farmers and communities adapt. What works, what is still a pilot, and what nobody has proven yet.
Early warning
5 stories
Disaster response · Nicaragua
UNICEF is testing a tool that estimates how many children a hurricane could reach before it lands
Ahead of the Storm links storm forecasts to maps of children, schools and health centers. UNICEF's own accounts differ on how much of it is AI, and checking its estimates against real storms is still ahead.
Disaster response · Nepal
An AI map shows unstable ground under a Nepal village. The warnings are still being built.
Scientists in Australia and Nepal are testing AI that reads satellite radar and rain data to find slopes that may slide. In one village, a teacher read the rain gauge every morning during the 2025 monsoon. No warning from the system has been reported yet.
Climate · India
A free weekly map forecasts where India's farm soil may dry out in the weeks ahead
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay launched KrishiDrought.in in October 2026 to show, district by district, where the soil under crops is expected to be drier or wetter than normal. The forecasts are experimental, and no accuracy test has been published yet.
Climate · Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda
East Africa's weather forecasters test an AI that turns one rain forecast into many
Weather services in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda are piloting an AI model that runs on a desktop computer and shows the range of rain that could fall. Early checks look encouraging. Full validation is still underway.
Climate · India
An AI map flags the Delhi homes most at risk from heat. Keeping them cool is people's work.
A Delhi nonprofit reads roofs from satellite images to decide which families to reach first in a heatwave. Making those homes cooler, and keeping them that way, has proved harder.
Wildlife and oceans
5 stories
Nature · South Korea
Water deer keep running onto South Korea's roads. On a few stretches, AI cameras now warn drivers first.
South Korea's environment ministry is testing cameras, laser sensors and roadside warning boards on short sections of road, from a national park in 2023 to the city of Cheongju in October 2026. There are no measured results yet, and national roadkill reports keep rising.
Nature · Global
Three in four industrial fishing vessels are not publicly tracked. Two nonprofits are teaming up to help officials see them.
Skylight, a free tool from Ai2 (the Allen Institute for AI), and the Global Fishing Watch map already help countries watch their seas. In September 2026 they announced shared AI models and chat-style assistants, with no results yet.
Nature · Nepal
Can AI listen for deer to warn of tigers? A paused pilot in Nepal
Villagers near Bardiya National Park know a deer's alarm call can mean a tiger is close. Ten cheap solar sensors learned to listen for it, imperfectly. Then the money ran out.
Nature · Guatemala
AI will listen for chainsaws in Guatemala's Maya Forest. Reaching them is still the hard part.
Conservationists and Cornell scientists are building forest recorders that pick out chainsaws and gunshots and send the clip to rangers. They were due to go into the forest in early 2027, and the team is open about their limits.
Nature · France
A free plant app from French public research turns everyday photos into open data for science
Pl@ntNet suggests the name of a plant from a phone photo. Volunteers check the answers, and the most reliable records go into the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), an open database that scientists use to map plant life. Most of the numbers come from the project itself, and its coverage is still strongest in Europe.
Smart farming
3 stories
Food and farming · Kenya, India, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Brazil, Zimbabwe
Kenya has one farm adviser for every 1,380 farmers. A nonprofit's AI assistant is now in a 600-village trial.
Digital Green, a farming nonprofit founded in 2008, built FarmerChat for government farm advisers first. A survey found strong use in Kenya, and a randomized trial will report on harvests and income after March 2027.
Food and farming · Zimbabwe
Farm advice built to answer in Shona: a Zimbabwean startup tests AI for farmers with little internet
Hurudza AI, a young company from Chinhoyi, offers crop advice through an app and WhatsApp, and is piloting solar-powered "Farmers' Bench" units, built to work offline, with its partner Paltech Africa. Its large usage numbers are its own, and the evidence is still early.
Food and farming · Kenya
How a Kenyan farmer's daughter uses AI and simple text messages to warn farmers about pests
Farmer Lifeline's solar-powered cameras watch small farms for pests and disease, then send an SMS that works on any phone, so women farmers with basic handsets can act in time.
Energy and water
2 stories
Water and sanitation · Tanzania
Solar water stations in Tanzania try to flag their own repairs before they break
SafeSip, a young Tanzanian company, sells treated water by prepaid card and says its monitoring system warns of clogging filters before a station fails. It is growing fast, and for now every number comes from SafeSip itself.
Clean energy · India
Seven Indian plywood factories went solar. Satellite AI was only step one.
World Resources Institute (WRI) India used AI to map factory roofs in Haryana from space. Getting seven plywood makers in Yamunanagar to install solar took three years of patient, human work.
