In this episode I sat down with Jennifer Marcus and Isaac Corley from Taylor Geospatial to explore Fields of the World - an open initiative to create globally consistent agricultural field boundary datasets from satellite imagery using AI and cloud-native geospatial infrastructure. Taylor Geospatial, a newly formed research organization, is building openly licensed global datasets as foundational public goods. Jen and Isaac explain the motivation behind the project, the challenges of scaling machine learning beyond well-labelled regions, and why openness in datasets, tooling, and intermediate model outputs, is central to their approach.
We dive into the technical details behind the first global release: assembling noisy and uneven benchmark datasets from around the world, training models that generalise across diverse agricultural systems, and releasing everything from Sentinel-2 mosaics and raw segmentation probabilities to polygonised field boundaries through Source Cooperative. Along the way, we discuss community-driven improvement loops inspired by OpenStreetMap, the limitations of 10 m imagery for smallholder agriculture, and the importance of pairing academic researchers with engineering teams to rapidly operationalise new methods. Finally, we look ahead to Taylor Geospatial’s next phase - richer agricultural datasets, “Features of the World,” and a benchmarking initiative aimed at improving evaluation standards and reproducibility across geospatial foundation models.
Bio: Jennifer Marcus is Vice President of Strategic Innovation Programs at Taylor Geospatial, where she advances partnerships and programs that translate breakthrough geospatial AI research into real-world impact. With deep experience across defence, federal government, and open-source geospatial ecosystems, Jennifer brings decades of expertise translating emerging technologies into mission-critical impact. She previously served as the inaugural Executive Director of Taylor Geospatial Engine, which in 2024, launched what would become Fields of The World, and has held leadership roles at Planet, Boundless Spatial, and Northrop Grumman.
Bio: Isaac Corley is Director of AI/ML Research at Taylor Geospatial, where he leads a team to build the models behind earth observation research and to create open data products that elevate the geospatial market and community as a whole. Isaac builds and publishes geospatial AI from research through production, including the RasterFlow platform at Wherobots, which was used to run Fields of The World. He has served as PI on the IARPA SMART program at BlackSky and maintains widely-used open-source projects, including TorchGeo and SMP. Check out his blog with Caleb Robinson at geospatialml.com.
