Google's AI can identify wildlife from trap-camera footage with up to 98.6% accuracy

With respect to climate change, poaching, and encroachment on natural habitats, some animal populations have fared far worse than others. It's estimated that the populations of more than 4,000 species shrunk by 60% between 1970 and 2014, and a recent United Nations global assessment found that as many as 1 million species are at risk of extinction within the next decade. That's why Google has partnered with Conservation International and other organizations -- the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Map of Life, World Wide Fund for Nature, Wildlife Conservation Society, and Zoological Society of London, with support from Google's Earth Outreach program and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Lyda Hill Philanthropies. The goal is to help process one of the world's largest and most diverse databases of photographs taken from motion-activated cameras. As of today, the fruits of their labor is available through Google Cloud as a part of Wildlife Insights, an AI-enabled platform that streamlines conservation monitoring by expediting trap-camera photo analysis.