Scouring remote areas for missing walkers and climbers can take rescuers weeks and sometimes months. AI can do the job in a matter of hours in some cases – and potentially save lives.

Axar.az informs, citing BBC, racing against worsening weather, mountain rescue teams in the Italian region of Piemonte were facing a puzzle. An experienced Italian climber and orthopaedic surgeon Nicola Ivaldo had gone missing. The 66-year-old had failed to show up show up at work on Monday and an alarm was raised.

Ivaldo had set out alone one Sunday in September 2024. Unfortunately, he hadn’t shared details of where he was headed with friends or family. The only clue to his whereabouts was the car that rescuers had found parked at the village of Castello di Pontechianale, in the Valle Varaita. From there, rescuers speculated, Ivaldo had probably gone to climb one of the two most prominent peaks of the Cottian alps – the jagged 3,841m-high (12,602ft) Monviso or its neighbour Visolotto, at 3,348m (10,984ft). This matched the last signal from his mobile phone, traced roughly in this area.

More than fifty rescuers searched the area on foot for nearly a week, while a helicopter flew multiple sorties in the hope of spotting him from the air. By the time the early snow arrived in late September, any hope of finding him alive had faded and they aborted the search.

In July 2025, however, the search for Ivaldo's body resumed after the snow had largely melted from steep mountain gullies, or couloirs.

But this time the Piemonte rescue service brought in some additional help – artificial intelligence.

They employed AI software capable of analysing thousands of photos taken by drones that could fly close to the rock walls and up the many gullies that streak the mountain flanks. It took just five hours for the two drones to capture the images and they were analysed the same day to identify spots where rescue teams could focus their search. Unfortunately poor weather conditions delayed the operation to then visit these sites with the drones to take a closer look.

Three days after the search resumed, however, the body of the missing doctor was found at one of the sites identified by the AI, lying in a gully on the north wall of Monviso at an altitude of around 3,150m (10,334ft). His body was recovered by helicopter.