Can artificial intelligence help us protect nature?

The question of how artificial intelligence can contribute to the protection of nature and biodiversity is increasingly coming into focus. At ESMT Berlin, we address this topic across a range of formats. These include the Sustainable Business Roundtable, a gathering established in 2011 for internationally active companies engaged in sustainability, which meets twice a year under Chatham House rules to exchange proven approaches and new ideas. Insights also flow from public conversations such as the ESMT Insight Hour held on International Biodiversity Day. The following observations bring together key insights from these discussions, highlighting where artificial intelligence offers potential and where it creates new risks.

Biodiversity is one of the central planetary boundaries that keep Earth's systems stable (Rockström et al., 2009). Unlike climate change, however, it cannot be reduced to a single metric such as tonnes of CO₂ emitted. Species loss, habitat decline, and changes in ecosystem services are complex and often locally specific. This makes biodiversity difficult to measure and means it frequently remains invisible in corporate reporting.

Artificial intelligence is beginning to change this. Studies show how machine learning can identify species, map habitats, and track pressures in near real time by analyzing images, videos, texts, audio recordings, and DNA (Pollock et al., 2025). Such tools are finding their way into business practice. Companies can use artificial intelligence to monitor deforestation risks in supply chains, better understand land-use changes around sourcing locations, or translate complex datasets into simple nature-related risk indicators. When these insights are connected to concrete business contexts, biodiversity becomes more tangible for decision-makers.

At the same time, artificial intelligence has its own ecological footprint. It requires large amounts of electricity and water, and data centers need space and cooling. The hardware depends on rare earths and other raw materials whose extraction damages habitats and species. Research warns that rapid growth in AI infrastructure could significantly increase electricity consumption, water demand, and electronic waste if clear standards for efficiency, renewable energy, and circular material use are not established. Without deliberate management, these impacts could intensify pressure on natural ecosystems rather than contributing to their preservation.

A central insight is therefore to combine artificial intelligence with human and natural intelligence. AI helps us learn from nature. A striking example is the whale shark, as described by Frauke Fischer and Hilke Oberhansberg. Artificial intelligence can identify individual animals by the spot patterns on their skin. Divers upload photos, and the systems link the images together. Combined with ocean data, models can predict migration patterns and help ships avoid collisions. It is a good example of how natural and artificial intelligence work together: animals provide data, AI recognizes patterns, and humans make decisions.

Exactly this kind of decision-making sequence is needed in biodiversity protection. In reality, economic systems continue to reward activities that harm nature. Harmful subsidies persist. Environmental costs are typically not reflected in prices. The goal of protecting thirty percent of land, inland waters, and ocean by 2030, as set out in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, will only work if it is backed by real financial resources.

On the question of AI's role in protecting nature, Dr. Christof Schenck of the Frankfurt Zoological Society reported during an ESMT Insight Hour on biodiversity that in the Colombian Amazon, new AI tools are helping to detect illegal deforestation in near real time and enabling faster enforcement. As effective as these tools are, they are not sufficient on their own. Protecting and restoring nature continues to require corporate and political will, as well as investment on the ground.

The same message emerged from our conversations at the most recent Sustainable Business Roundtable. Artificial intelligence works best when people guide it with a clear purpose. We need to halt the loss of nature and restore the ecosystems that sustain life and economic activity. The tools available to support us in doing so are becoming ever more powerful. The decisive question now is whether we use them to make faster and better decisions in defense of nature — or whether we use them to compound the problem on an unprecedented scale.

Originally published in German as "Kann uns künstliche Intelligenz dabei helfen die Natur zu schützen?" in Table.Briefings, Table.Forum Biodiversity.