The changes taking place go far beyond simple trends into a radical reshaping of how shipping and class operates, writes Michael Kei, Vice President, Technology, ABS
Digital technology and applications have moved quickly from the testing and development environment into day-to-day shipping operations. Across artificial intelligence (AI), sensing, robotics and digital systems, the industry is now talking less about future potential and more about practical questions of deployment and integration.
The first ABS Technology Trends publication was released in 2022 just a few days after the public release of a generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot. It’s difficult to overstate the impact AI has had since then. In preparing a new Technology Trends edition, the case for exploring AI’s intersection with the core maritime technologies became clear.
AI has expanded its influence to touch every aspect of our working lives – from digitalisation to the energy transition and applied research. Even as regulations shift and evolve, the trend toward improving efficiency remains a central theme driving technological change in the marine and offshore sectors.
The integration of AI and other technologies is enhancing operational efficiency, safety and environmental stewardship. AI-driven advances in robotics and sensing are among the key enablers that can reduce the need to put workers in potentially unsafe environments for inspection and assessment.
Over the past four years, the technologies ABS identified have grown in importance as the maritime industry adapts to increased demand for energy efficiency, safety and digitalization.
But if the first few years of the 2020s were a period of assessment and knowledge-building around emerging technologies, the second half of this decade should be about putting these technologies to work.
The marine and offshore sectors understand the power of data and digitalisation but at present, technology is akin to potential energy because it is not always widely shared. The industry needs to convert this potential to kinetic energy that can drive much greater efficiency and safety.
One of the shifts the industry needs is in how it views intellectual property and the value of successful innovation. In many cases, keeping solutions closely held can slow progress rather than accelerate it. Greater value could be created if the benefits of successful solutions were more broadly applied across the industry.
The industry has been implementing technology, but often in silos rather than through a collaborative approach that could support wider adoption. As a result, the full potential of these solutions is not always being realized.
The understanding of what is possible certainly exists; what is missing is the collaboration necessary to accelerate the process.
The need across the industry is for stakeholders – including class – to work with clients and solution providers to accelerate development and implementation.
We are seeing a clear divergence between those who are content to wait and see what technology is capable of and others who recognize it is time to adopt new technology.
Some shipping companies are already looking at ways to accelerate the process, with internal lab organisations providing a space for start-ups to demonstrate ideas that could be adopted if proven successful.
And these technologies are not merely industry trends. They are foundational shifts that are reshaping how the world operates. It is essential that stakeholders embrace this evolution and recalibrate both short- and long-term strategies to navigate the complexities of emerging regulations, technological readiness and operational boundaries.
It also means a shift in emphasis for class, supplementing the core work of verification and certification towards helping clients understand the opportunities of new technologies and supporting vendors in validating the functions and assessing the implications of their solutions.
This transition, towards being a strategic technology partner, is grounded in the major upgrade to ABS Rules completed in 2025 to incorporate Goal-Based Standards. The purpose of the revision was to modernize ABS Rules so that ABS can evaluate new technology and innovations without abandoning the existing prescriptive framework.
The trend toward increasingly integrated technologies means that ABS operates as an enterprise across its business units, drawing together the skills that reside in classification with those of ABS Wavesight and ABS Group.
Using this collaborative approach can help accelerate the development and safe introduction of new technologies to the wider industry and can enable ABS to act as a force multiplier for technology adoption.
As the last half decade has shown, access to technology is not enough; the greater need is to understand how to leverage it for daily operations for long-term benefit.
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