The Next Frontier of Ocean Governance: AI, Satellites and Transparency

Summary

Jennifer Raynor Dr. Jennifer Raynor discusses the rapid evolution of AI-enabled vessel tracking technologies and how this technology can drive better decisions at sea. As chair of Global Fishing Watch’s science advisory board and member of the organization’s board of directors, Dr. Jennifer Raynor has a front-row seat to the rapidly changing picture capturing human activity at sea. Advances in artificial intelligence, satellite imagery and vessel tracking are not only increasingly revealing where fishing happens but also spotlighting once-hidden gaps left by conventional monitoring systems. Raynor has helped shape that emerging field. An assistant professor of natural resource economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, her work has centered on how new sources of ocean data can inform conservation efforts and fisheries management in the name of greater transparency. Her latest paper, “Satellite-Based Fishing Fleet Tracking: A New Foundation for Fisheries Science and Management,” published in July 2026, examines how a decade of technological advances has transformed fisheries science, from AI models capable of identifying apparent fishing activity to satellite imagery that can detect vessels that do not appear in public tracking systems. We spoke with Raynor about the evolution of vessel tracking, the questions these technologies can now answer and how the next generation of AI-enabled ocean monitoring can bolster global efforts for ocean transparency. How has satellite-based vessel tracking evolved? There have been two critical breakthroughs in publicly accessible, global-scale vessel tracking datasets over the past decade, both led by Global Fishing Watch scientists. The first was the release of their flagship data on apparent fishing activity in 2018, which uses AI models to infer when and where a vessel is likely fishing based on its movement patterns. For example, the model may learn that vessels move in a straight line and at a certain speed when trawling. This was the first time that scientists, managers, policymakers, journalists and the public at large could access global-scale data on industrial fishing fleets. It offered a degree of transparency in human uses of the ocean that was previously unthinkable. Unfortunately, AIS data still has major blind spots. Captains can turn off or tamper with transponders, satellite reception is poor in many…