Demand for Earth Imagery Today

Today, the market for earth imagery is rapidly expanding far beyond its original use as a source of military intelligence, and is valued in the hundreds of billions. While military applications remain an important driver, the overall growth is fueled by increasing demand for high-resolution, up-to-date imagery across a variety of industry sectors.

The combined sectors of aerial imagery, geospatial data, and drone imaging represent multi-billion-dollar markets with substantial expansion anticipated, reaching $214 billion by 2032. The role of drones in providing high-resolution, consistent imagery at scale has quickly become essential as neither satellite nor manned aircraft imagery can meet the growing need for higher-resolution, up-to-date, local-area, and cost effective data. As such, drone imagery can fill a need in established, emerging, and potential market applications:

Government and Public Sector: All levels of government—municipal, state/provincial, and federal—can use accurate and up-to-date imagery for a variety of functions. High-resolution data supports urban planning, public works projects, site assessment, infrastructure monitoring, environmental monitoring, construction permitting, and emergency response. With frequent updates, these data can be used to monitor construction activity, provide understanding of natural disaster impacts, and track seasonal changes. Government agencies are already a prominent user and customer of existing earth imagery products. With more frequent, less expensive data, additional government applications will emerge, supporting innovations in self-driving cars, dynamic curbside management, and special events.

Real Estate and Commercial Development: Access to standardized, high-quality imagery enables developers to make efficient data-driven decisions, supporting valuation, planning, and construction. High resolution, updated imagery supports site assessment and selection, evaluating land conditions, assessing environmental impacts, and visualizing the project within its surroundings. In the course of property development, frequently updated imagery allows for monitoring construction progress. Following project completion, or in the case of existing real estate, high resolution imagery can be used in sales and marketing.

Insurance: Insurance providers use high-resolution imagery to assess risk, verify damage claims, and monitor properties, especially in areas prone to natural disasters. Insurance companies have already shifted to using aerial imagery in multiple aspects of their industry. More frequent, less expensive high quality data will likely further increase the utility of aerial imagery within this industry.

Property Services: High quality aerial imagery supports a variety of property services industries: roofing, landscaping, residential remodeling, snow removal. Many of these services rely on site visits and measurements to develop a bid. With consistent imagery, measurements, estimates, visualization, and bid development can be simplified. While some companies within this industry have started to use aerial imagery, many are small businesses that would benefit from access to standardized, lower-cost imagery.

Logistics and Last-Mile Delivery: Logistics companies rely on geospatial data for optimizing routes, especially in last-mile delivery. Cases where data is inaccurate or doesn’t reflect recent changes can result in costly delays, particularly in complex urban environments. With high resolution, up-to-date imagery, companies can develop more accurate delivery maps and routes and adapt to infrastructure changes, reducing costs and improving reliability. This use is an emerging application of aerial imagery that will benefit from increased resolution and more frequent data updates.