Sea Machines Robotics

Human+AI Navigation Experience for Maritime Autonomy

Navigation screen displaying a city skyline with skyscrapers and boats on the water, along with tracking and waypoint information.

Sea Machines set out to pioneer autonomous marine technology for commercial vessels. But autonomy on the water requires more than algorithms — it requires the trust of seasoned captains. The challenge was to design an experience that made AI-driven navigation transparent, intuitive, and safe, ensuring human operators could understand, oversee, and collaborate with intelligent systems at sea.

How it started

Build a trusted Human+AI navigation platform — one that provides captains with clear situational awareness, intuitive autopilot and mission planning tools, and explainable AI decision support, while setting a scalable foundation for future product launches.

Defining success

Collage of four images showing ship navigation planning: hand-drawn sketches of ship navigation routes on graph paper, a digital navigation chart with annotations, a ship's digital display with navigation data and a map of a ship's route on water, and two ship crew members in the wheelhouse operating instruments and monitors.

  • Market research and captain/engineer co-creation sprints

  • Human-in-the-loop workflow design for AI guidance and operator authority

  • 360° camera views with AR overlays for situational awareness

  • Streamlined alerting and explainable AI feedback systems

  • Autopilot control flows, mission planning, and scalable interaction patterns

  • Production-ready design system powering multiple product launches

Making it happen

Screen display of a maritime navigation system with a real-time view of the water and city skyline, navigational charts, and various status indicators.

  • Shipped a production-ready UX/UI system in <5 months, powering 3 new Sea Machines product offerings

  • Helped secure industry-defining partnerships, including Maersk’s first AI-powered situational awareness deployment

  • Supported $12M investment from Chevron Technology Ventures and $10M from Toyota Ventures

  • Elevated Sea Machines’ market profile with features in Forbes, Wired, and maritime innovation press, and recognition on the NATSEC100 list

Outcomes that echo

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