European Space Agency to Develop Earth Observation Digital Assistant

The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced its plan to develop a ChatGPT-inspired digital assistant to help humans analyze complex Earth observation data. Led by Φ-lab, the agency’s Earth observation innovation and investment arm, the chatbot will be trained to understand and respond to human queries about the Earth. With vast volumes of unlabelled data gathered by Earth observation tools, ESA Φ-lab aims to establish an AI model to support the digital assistant, enabling it to translate unlabelled data from satellites into meaningful insights. This initiative holds promising prospects, with ESA Φ-lab's efforts in creating foundation models dedicated to Earth observation already showing encouraging progress. The project reflects a broader trend of task-specific chatbots, with a surge in chatbots designed to aid understanding of various topics, from climate change to finances.