Orca AI has expanded its collaboration with Eastern Pacific Shipping (EPS) following the successful completion of a pilot involving five vessels and more than 130,000 nautical miles of operations. Following the pilot, EPS will deploy Orca AI’s maritime operations platform across dozens of additional vessels, reflecting confidence in the platform’s ability to support navigational awareness and operational decision-making under real-world conditions.
The expansion follows measurable improvements in navigational safety observed during the pilot and reflects a growing trend across the maritime industry as operators move from technology evaluation to wider operational deployment.
Across the five-vessel deployment, operational data showed that close encounter events decreased by 48% per 1,000 nautical miles, while average minimum passing distance increased by 10%. One participating vessel, the Pacific Sentinel, recorded an 84% reduction in open-water close-encounter events and a 50% increase in minimum passing distance within six months of installation.
Orca AI’s platform combines onboard situational awareness with shore-based analytics. SeaPod, installed on the bridge, uses computer vision to detect and classify surrounding vessels and objects, including non-AIS targets such as fishing vessels and buoys, helping bridge teams maintain awareness in congested waters and low-visibility conditions. FleetView provides shoreside teams with navigational insights that enable the review of operational events, identification of trends and support for data-driven training and continuous improvement.
Sachin Saharawat, Technical Director at EPS, said the company’s seafarers are at the centre of everything it does, adding that the goal is to equip Masters and bridge teams with practical technologies that enhance situational awareness and support safe decision-making. He said the pilot gave EPS objective data on how navigational risk changed over time, and the results gave the company confidence to expand deployment across its fleet.
Yarden Gross, CEO and Co-Founder of Orca AI, said EPS has taken a disciplined, data-driven approach to adoption, adding that the results demonstrate how AI-based situational awareness can reinforce good seamanship, reducing high-risk situations, supporting calmer decision-making and delivering measurable improvements both on the bridge and ashore.
