Rainforest ecosystems are incredibly vulnerable, but with Google AI, everyone can now assist scientists in monitoring and preserving these vital habitats. Today, we’re launching Forest Listeners, a new online AI experiment from Google Arts & Culture and Google DeepMind, developed in collaboration with our team at WildMon. The project invites people everywhere to help scientists by listening for the calls of hidden species in the rainforests of Brazil.

Forest Listeners takes users into a virtual 3D forest, where they can:

• Search the Atlantic or Amazon rainforests for hidden species
• Train their ears to recognize their unique calls
• Click “yes” if they do, or “no” if they don’t. Every response helps

These contributions are helping to fine tune Perch, an AI model from Google DeepMind, to accelerate and scale the process of monitoring biodiversity. By immersing audiences in this interactive and engaging experiment, we aim to inspire continued deeper learning about rainforests and provide valuable crowd-sourced support for expert-led conservation efforts.

Hear the unique calls of the rainforest to assess its health

We’re able to gauge the health of a forest from the inside out by listening to the diversity and patterns of animal behavior. But analyzing the thousands of hours of audio recordings is a challenge, and training data for audio models is lacking for many important species all over the world, including the Brazilian rainforests. That's why we’re excited about the work we have done with Forest Listeners, bringing together scientists, citizen scientists and Google AI to monitor health, assess biodiversity and measure restoration success.

Train AI models with the global community

This AI experiment is built on more than 1.2 million audio recordings from the Atlantic and Amazon rainforests. When you listen to a sound clip and identify an animal call, you’re helping to create a massive library of verified sounds. This data is then used to fine-tune Google's Perch AI model to recognize these species automatically, which also supports WildMon’s ongoing efforts to make biodiversity monitoring more accessible and impactful. With your help, we can train this model faster and more accurately, enabling scientists to monitor and protect these precious ecosystems at a scale that was previously impossible.

Get involved and start listening

This is more than just a data collection project–it’s a chance to connect with the vibrant sounds of the rainforest and play a direct role in its conservation. We invite you to join us in this effort.

Start listening and contributing today at goo.gle/ForestListeners