September 2025

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We share a lot of stories about how AI is helping to make daily life a little easier for humans but AI is also changing how we understand and protect the natural world.

This month, we’re highlighting two projects supported by Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab that are using AI to uncover hidden ecosystems and monitor elusive animals in ways that previously weren’t possible.

These efforts aren’t just about crunching data – they’re about deepening our connection to nature and speeding up our ability to protect it.  

Wetlands are climate heroes and biodiversity hotspots, but many have been lost to development or are so hidden that they’re hard to protect.

To tackle that challenge, the Tulalip Tribes in Washington state and global research group TealWaters are teaming up to find and restore wetlands across tribal lands. The TealWaters team is building an AI-powered tool that layers aerial images with other data to give communities a clearer, more complete picture of wetlands and water dynamics.

The tool shows information other maps miss, like hard-to-spot wetlands and how landscapes are changing over time. With help from Microsoft, TealWaters is using deep learning to sharpen its models and spot data patterns more accurately.

The goal is to help Tulalip Tribes better understand “biological hotspots,” which are home to many different plants and animals, and build cultural and environmental resilience.

“AI enables us to go through those mountains of information, helping us manage our lands and tell our story more effectively,” says Steve Hinton, a conversation scientist with Tulalip Tribes.

Meanwhile, conservationists with Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo are using AI to help tell a different story – that of the Pacific marten, a member of the weasel family that’s nearly disappeared from Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.

The zoo is testing SPARROW (Solar-Powered Acoustic and Remote Recording Observation Watch), an AI-powered system developed by Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab.

SPARROW collects wildlife data and beams it up to the cloud via satellite, so researchers can get real-time insights instead of having to trek to far-flung locations to retrieve data once a year.

SPARROW is being tested in Woodland Park Zoo’s Asian small-claw otter exhibit, since those (ridiculously adorable!) creatures are similar in size and shape to Pacific martens. Conservationists hope SPARROW can help locate Pacific martens on the Olympic Peninsula and guide them in collecting genetic samples to support their survival.  

The technology was announced in December 2024 to support biodiversity monitoring in remote areas. It’s already being used in several countries, but the zoo pilot is its first in Washington.

 “Having innovative partners like Woodland Park Zoo provides us with early insights into how the technology is performing and what could be improved,” says Juan M. Lavista Ferres, chief data scientist and director of the Microsoft AI for Good Lab.  

Lightening electricity’s load

What if a computer could solve complex problems using light and much less electricity?

That’s the idea behind Microsoft’s analog optical computer (AOC), a prototype built with off-the-shelf parts like micro-LEDs and smartphone sensors. It’s already tackled real-world challenges in finance and health care, including optimizing banking transactions and MRI scans.

The AOC could also run AI workloads faster and with much less energy than today’s GPUs; researchers estimate up to 100 times more energy efficiency for certain tasks.

Microsoft developed a digital twin that mimics how the AOC behaves, enabling researchers to solve optimization problems at a scale that would be useful in real situations, and we’re publicly sharing the digital twin and the AOC’s algorithm so other researchers can explore what the light-powered computer can do.

Coders git after it

When Argentina’s Central Bank ended currency controls last spring that restricted the purchase of U.S. dollars, developers at Galicia bank had just one weekend to update their app.

With GitHub Copilot, they pulled it off. The AI-powered coding assistant helped the team write, test and deploy the update on time, without compromising quality or security.

Across Argentina, teams at Galicia and fintech Naranja X are using GitHub Copilot to write and test code faster, troubleshoot more efficiently and delegate tasks to GitHub’s coding agent. Features like real-time autocompletion and context-aware suggestions are helping developers move quicker and smarter.

“It’s giving teams and developers a lot more agility, which really helps us tackle more tasks,” says Marcelo Fabián Gutiérrez, a senior developer at Galicia.

Smarter care = better outcomes

Health care systems everywhere are being squeezed by higher demand, aging populations and tight budgets – and Ribera, a private provider in Spain, is turning to AI to help ease the pressure.

Ribera’s new Cynara Citizen portal, built with Microsoft technology, lets doctors monitor patients with chronic conditions, reducing emergency room visits and improving outcomes. Cynara helps care teams collaborate, track health indicators and intervene early – before small issues become big ones.

Ribera is also using AI to predict patients at risk for falls or being readmitted to the hospital, and even to generate discharge papers to ease administrative workload. The goal is better care, fewer emergencies and more time for what matters most – patients. 

Mahalo, AI! 🌺

Granting a wish to a child with a critical illness takes coordination, compassion – and sometimes, a little help from AI.

Make-A-Wish is using Microsoft AI technology for everything from fundraising to logistics to help make those magical moments possible. The tools are helping to simplify operations, giving employees more time to create uplifting experiences for kids.

Like Sadie, 13, who recently saw her dream of visiting Hawaii come true. With her parents, Sadie, who has epilepsy, explored the island of Kauai, took in tropical flowers and beaches, and even learned to surf. Make-A-Wish arranged everything and checked in often to support the family.

“Once Sadie’s wish was granted, the process was very streamlined,” says Sadie’s mom, Jennifer Cooper. “We didn’t have to worry about anything we typically would have.”

From wetlands to wishes, AI can help us take care of what matters most: our families, our communities, our planet, each other – and each otter! 🦦