Editor's note
Global Forester just went live in Claude. My own company, SkogsAI, opens the same door: every user can now connect it to Claude or ChatGPT through MCP, the open standard that lets an AI assistant call tools outside itself.
One connection on its own is useful. Two in the same chat can do what neither does alone. Ask for a planting plan for every clear-cut on a property, and Global Forester pulls the areas and site indexes from the owner's own register while SkogsAI works out the right plant type and number of plants from science-backed guidance. Today someone copies those figures between two systems by hand.
I expect more forestry systems to open up this way over the coming year. The work gets interesting when harvester data, timber prices and nature-value maps can be asked about in the same conversation as the owner's own plan.
Axel
Global Forester lets users talk to their forest data in Claude
Swedish field system Global Forester is now connected to Claude, with Microsoft Copilot next, through an MCP server (Model Context Protocol, the open standard that lets AI assistants use outside tools). It is the first in forestry to let users talk to their own operational forest data from the AI assistant they already work in, asking in plain language instead of clicking through the app. Global Forester shows it at Skogforsk and SLU's RiU conference in Skinnskatteberg.
Finnos lets AI agents plan the sawmill
Finnish sawmill measurement firm Finnos showed a system at the Sahateollisuuspäivät sawmill days on 4–5 November in which AI agents plan production. Its scanners link every board to the log it came from, and the agents read log yard, dryers and order book together. A new order or a dryer fault now triggers a new plan, and a person picks which plan runs. Mustola Timber, already running it, credits earlier Finnos investments with over 5% higher value yield and expects AI to add more.
Derome saws rot-damaged spruce instead of pulping it
Swedish timber group Derome is also putting AI on the log, to rescue wood that now goes to pulp. It has started trial sawing of rot-damaged spruce, bought from owners as a new assortment called sawable pulpwood. AI image processing on its new saw line finds the rot inside each log, so firm rot is cut away and the sound wood sawn to special dimensions. Owners get a preliminary SEK 200 per cubic metre over the pulpwood price, but only from Derome's own harvesting, where operators are trained to tell firm rot from soft.
Comact puts log scanning on the headrig carriage
Canadian sawmill equipment maker Comact has launched a Carriage Optimizer for the headrig, where a carriage drives each log past the first saw. A dense scan of the log's shape lets software choose the opening cuts, position the carriage and suggest a sawing speed. Comact says it fits any carriage, so mills can upgrade without replacing working iron. First user Scierie Carrière, a Quebec hardwood mill, reports up to 5% higher productivity and was back at normal pace after two shifts.
Google DeepMind maps where 100,000 species live
Google DeepMind has published OCELOT, a global model of where species occur, trained on about 2 billion open sightings of 100,000 species. It pairs each sighting with AlphaEarth Foundations satellite embeddings, which describe vegetation and water down to 10-metre cells, and learns which habitats each species turns up in. The authors pitch it as a starting map to calibrate with local survey data, which could make nature-value checks before harvest faster. Model and maps are not released yet.
From the Forestry Tech Landscape
The Forestry Tech Landscape maps 100+ companies and startups building technology for forests. Three to know this week:
NEW · Global Forester (Forest management software). Field app for forest management, timber purchasing and damage surveys, with offline maps and drone flight planning.
Finnos (Timber logistics & traceability). Finnish AI-based log, sawline and board scanners with log yard control software for sawmills and plywood mills.
Flash Forest (Planting & silviculture). Drone swarms and seed pods for planting trees at scale after wildfires and deforestation.