April 21, 2026 — Scientists at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) in Juneau are increasingly using artificial intelligence to better track fish as climate changes, says Bob Foy, science and research director.
“We’ve been using AI for decades,” Foy said. “It is getting better and better,” he said on Thursday, April 16, while presenting on NOAA-AFSC data collection modernization at 2026 ComFish Alaska in Kodiak, the state’s annual largest fisheries and trade show.
All this is a process of doing more with less, as AFSC works to better monitor fisheries and make abundance surveys better.
“Things are changing in the ocean so fast that now is the time to change the gears, he said. “We are changing survey design. Some of it is AI and it is getting better,” he said, as AFSC spreads its research efforts over about 100,000 square nautical miles, not including the Arctic.