Google Earth gets an AI chatbot to help chart the climate crisis

illuminem summarises for you the essential news of the day. Read the full piece on Wired or enjoy below:

🗞️ Driving the news: Google Earth has launched a new AI-powered chatbot feature that allows users to interactively explore climate change impacts by asking natural language questions
• The tool enables users to query geographic and environmental data—such as sea-level rise, deforestation, or urban heat islands—across time and location. It marks a major step toward making satellite imagery and environmental data more accessible to the public, policymakers, and researchers.

🔭 The context: Google Earth has long served as a digital mapping tool, but its functionality has primarily been limited to visualization
• The integration of generative AI—trained on geospatial data and historical imagery—transforms the platform into a more analytical and predictive system
• The move aligns with Google’s broader push to embed AI into its ecosystem and supports growing global demand for data-driven climate intelligence

🌍 Why it matters for the planet: Empowering users to easily access and interpret climate data enhances transparency and informed decision-making
• The AI chatbot could help communities identify environmental risks, support adaptation strategies, and monitor policy effectiveness in real time
• As climate-related disasters become more frequent, tools like this offer scalable potential for climate resilience, especially for vulnerable regions with limited technical capacity

⏭️ What's next: Google aims to expand the tool’s predictive capabilities to model future scenarios, such as forecasting disaster risks or identifying at-risk populations
• It may also integrate with global sustainability reporting platforms and city planning tools
• As the system evolves, it could become a key resource for climate researchers, educators, and civil society actors advocating for climate justice and resilience planning

💬 One quote: “This makes climate data intuitive and actionable for everyone—not just scientists,” said Rebecca Moore, Director of Google Earth, Earth Engine, and Outreach

📈 One stat: Google Earth’s AI chatbot draws on more than 50 years of satellite imagery and petabytes of climate and land-use data, enabling deep insights into environmental trends

See on illuminem's Data Hub™ the sustainability performance of Google and its peers like Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM

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