I wanted to add a bit more context to the 100 million goal. This is an aspirational number that reflects the full scope of how people might connect with nature through iNaturalist: observers making observations, identifiers helping with IDs, Seek users learning about species around them, researchers accessing data, educators bringing iNaturalist into classrooms, conservation partners using the platform for their work, people accessing the website as a reference, and more. The core mission to connect people to nature and advance science and conservation remains unchanged — this big-picture goal is about expanding the network of people connecting with nature in diverse ways to move forward that shared mission.
Re. the ID summaries demo: the December test was part of exploring how to help people find and reference the wealth of identification expertise that already exists on iNat. Based on what we learned from that exploration, the focus has shifted slightly. The first half of 2026 will bring work on a new search system to help people find and sort through useful identification information in existing ID remarks — without summarizing or altering what identifiers have shared. This approach keeps human expertise and input central while making it easier for everyone to learn from the incredible knowledge already contributed by the community. Separately, we know that one of the challenges IDers face is that too many observations have poor-quality evidence — with this in mind, we’ll be testing out photo tips later in the year to ideally help observers take more identifiable photos while drawing on data from observation comments and ID remarks.
The product goals post has the most current information on this work, and updates will continue as things progress!
EDITED 2/10: Updated language referencing iNaturalist’s core mission to be more accurate