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FathomVerse community makes significant contributions to ocean exploration in 2025

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FathomVerse invites a broad community of people to participate in ocean exploration and discovery. Players’ contributions are advancing development of new AI tools that are transforming ocean science and engineering. Image: Marike Pinsonneault © 2025 MBARI

FathomVerse community makes significant contributions to ocean exploration in 2025

Images and video reveal the diversity of marine life and vital clues about ocean health, but processing this vast amount of visual data is a huge challenge. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are transforming ocean science. Capable of rapidly analyzing vast amounts of visual data, these technologies can enable researchers to track ocean health at a scale that was once impossible.

A machine learning model identifies marine life in underwater video. The video shows a rocky wall with several corals, sea stars, and other invertebrates with endless black water in the background. The model overlays brightly colored boxes labeled with the animal’s scientific name and a confidence score on the image underneath.
By automating the detection and classification of marine life and other ocean features, AI can accelerate analysis of underwater imagery, allowing scientists to spend more time making new discoveries that, in turn, help inform ocean conservation. Image: © 2021 MBARI

Led by MBARI Principal Engineer Kakani Katija, the FathomNet Program brings AI and ocean research together, connecting programmers, marine scientists, and ocean enthusiasts to accelerate ocean discovery.

Before artificial intelligence can analyze ocean data, it must learn to recognize marine animals. FathomVerse is a mobile game developed through FathomNet that turns ocean exploration into play. Combining real scientific imagery with interactive gameplay, FathomVerse invites “FathomNauts” to classify real images of ocean life to help improve the AI that researchers use to study marine life and assess ocean health.

As we look back on 2025, the team at FathomVerse would like to celebrate FathomNauts’ contributions to ocean science. The collective efforts of FathomVerse players around the world are enhancing the AI models that researchers rely on to deepen our understanding of marine ecosystems. Together, we can speed up breakthroughs in science and discover all life in the ocean. 

Last year, FathomNauts played a total of 16,573 hours, resulting in 3,011,694 classification labels (teaching AI what’s in the image) and 1,025,803 localizations (teaching AI where the object is in the image). 

FathomVerse is made possible thanks to the institutions and individuals who generously shared videos and photos from their ocean research, including the Schmidt Ocean Institute, NOAA Ocean Exploration, MBARI, Dawn Wright, Joost Daniels, and Ocean Networks Canada. Thanks to the efforts of the FathomVerse community, 108,384 new labeled images were added to the FathomNet Database for use in machine learning training. 

As new missions, expeditions, and FathomNauts join the community, the FathomVerse team looks forward to exploring new depths in 2026.

Learn more in a new blog from FathomVerse. 

Join the FathomNaut community—download FathomVerse from the App Store or Google Play.

An infographic titled 2025 Year in Review cites various statistics from the FathomVerse mobile game, including 19,676 Images Labeled, 194,217 Regions of Interest, 4,037,497 Annotations, 36,351 Players, 16,573 Hours Played, set against a dark blue background.
The major highlights from 2025 show that every action players take in FathomVerse contributes directly to ocean science. Image courtesy of FathomVerse
A promotional graphic titled Moving Up the Ranks shows players' progress in the Fathomverse mobile game. It features a blue pyramid diagram divided into three levels, showing the number of players at each level: 34,866 players in Level 1-7, 426 in Level 8-14, and 286 in Level 15, labeled as Denizens of the Deep.
FathomNauts are moving up the ranks. An elite group of 286 players has reached level 15, “Denizen of the Deep.” Image courtesy of FathomVerse
A promotional graphic titled With Gratitude acknowledges individuals and organizations that have contributed data and images to the Fathomverse mobile game, including Schmidt Ocean Institute, MBARI, Dawn Wright, Joost Daniels, Ocean Networks Canada, and NOAA Ocean Exploration, with blue bubbles of sizes relative to their contributions and specific image counts listed beneath each name.
FathomVerse was made richer by video and image contributions from our partners. Image courtesy of FathomVerse
A promotional graphic titled Top Favorites shows the favorite animals of players in the Fathomverse mobile game. The blue graphic features six marine animals in a grid layout, including a pale white octopus, a red squid, a bumpy orange octopus, a pale purple octopus walking around white scientific equipment on the seafloor, a red octopus, and a translucent red comb jelly with an image credit caption acknowledging NOAA and MBARI.
These images of octopuses, a squid, and a bloody-belly comb jelly were the most popular. Image courtesy of FathomVerse
A promotional graphic titled On a Roll displays the amount of consecutive gameplay from players in the Fathomverse mobile game. The blue graphic has four vertical bars indicating bonus streaks of various lengths for daily badges: 3 days at 1259, 7 days at 339, 30 days at 53, and 100 days at 9.
In 2025, FathomVerse introduced streak badges that reward FathomNauts for playing consecutive days. Image courtesy of FathomVerse
A promotional graphic for the Fathomverse mobile game features a red squid swimming in dark blue water. One text overlay reads Let's continue the Cephaloparty in the New Year! A second text overlay reads Thank you for joining us on our mission to discover all life in the ocean. At the bottom is an image credit caption acknowledging MBARI.
Let’s continue the cephaloparty in the new year! Onwards and downwards! Image courtesy of FathomVerse

 

For additional information or images relating to this article, please email pressroom@mbari.org.

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