By Dronelife Features Editor Jim MagillAs artificial intelligence (AI) tools are rapidly driving the pace of technological innovation across a wide swath of industries, a controversy is brewing over which AI tools the commercial drone industry should embrace and how quickly that adoption should take place. But commercial drone operators are not far behind in finding new uses for AI technology. UTM systems will likely rely on AI tools in the development of object-avoidance technology and in locating where each drone is located in the airspace and where it’s going. Such early-detection systems could supplant the decades-old techniques of relying on humans to spot and report wildfires“With AI technology and using drone swarms, you have a hundred drones in the air scanning the forest. Robinson said one area in which AI tools could prove useful to most drone operators is in assisting them in mission planning.

Source: Forbes January 04, 2026 14:51 UTC