No one at Birdfy is lamenting the LLM, it seems, as the AI technology has formed the basis to an upgrade to the company's birdwatching tools called Birdfy OrniSense, which has been announced at CES 2026.
According to Birdfy, "upgrade called Birdfy OrniSense—the world's first LLM-powered birdwatching AI—at CES 2026. The upgrade marks a milestone in Birdfy's journey to elevate the birdwatching experience for every birding enthusiast."
What an LLM (Large Language Model) might actually mean in the context of birdwatching is less immediately apparent. I wouldn't want to have to stop and type "What's that bird?" every time, but it seems the company has thought of that.
Existing AI recognition features won't disappear, but "Joy," the on-board assistant, can respond to voice and serves to enhance the experience.
It understands relevant keywords "fights," "food thefts, " and "feeding moments."
Using these, you can make requests like "Hi Joy, I remember a fight with a blackbird one afternoon: find that moment." whereupon the device will go about assebling relevant clips for you.
In Birdfy's terms "OrniSense serves as your best birding companion."
The AI is supposed to be better than previpous systems (or competitors) because it doesn't simply attempt to identify a bird from the picture, but because it combines it with location data and shares this.
The system will then tell owners why it thinks the bird it is looking at is a particular species, both the body features and the likely locations.
The camera is not so bird-obsessed as to be unaware of other species either, and can recognise other visitors, indicating whether they're a threat to the birds or not.
Access to Joy is being granted in stages, with a Birdfy OrniSense Beta Program (remote link) launching in the next 30 days for new users to the platform and existing Birdfy users.
