By Josh Taylor
Publication Date: 2026-06-12 07:06:00
An AI model trained on data collected from Pokémon Go users will potentially help military drones find their location in war zones.
Pokémon Go, a 2016 augmented reality mobile game that allowed players to find and catch Pokémon in the real world using their cell phones’ cameras, grew in popularity. In 2018, the company reported more than 800 million downloads worldwide.
A 2021 update to the game introduced Pokéstops, which gave players in-game rewards for scanning real-world locations with their devices. Users had to log in and upload the recording.
Niantic, which developed Pokémon in collaboration with Nintendo, collected users’ location scanning data before the company sold its gaming division in 2025.
Using the historical scans, the company’s AI models were trained to recognize and interpret spaces in the physical world.
After reporting on DroneXL this week, Niantic confirmed a partnership with Vantor, a company that…
