AI could cut mineral exploration drilling by fivefold, says Stanford’s Jef Caers

Artificial intelligence applied to mineral exploration could cut drilling by a factor of five, generating substantial savings in time and capital while enabling more informed go-or-no-go decisions.

Jef Caers, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at Stanford University and one of the world’s leading experts in applied geosciences and decision-making under uncertainty, delivered this key message during a webinar in the World Mining Congress 2026 series.

Caers said this AI-based approach can reduce drilling requirements by fundamentally changing the logic of traditional exploration. Instead of drilling on a fixed grid to estimate grades, the system plans drilling campaigns to falsify human-generated geological hypotheses and strategically reduce uncertainty until a company can make an informed “go-ahead vs walk away” decision.

From self-driving cars to the intelligent prospector

To explain the concept, Caers referred to autonomous vehicles currently operating in San Francisco: “These things work extremely well. They’re very sophisticated. And so we call this type of AI an intelligent agent.”

He added that this “intelligent agent” is not simply a predictive tool. “An intelligent agent is an AI for sequential planning under uncertainty. This is an AI that makes decisions while at the same time optimizing data collection.”

Exploration: drilling to falsify hypotheses

Caers applied this framework directly to mineral exploration, stating that “all critical mineral supply chain challenges can be seen as sequential planning under uncertainty problems, starting with exploration.”

He explained that, in conventional practice, companies typically build a single deterministic subsurface model and drill on that basis. “An intelligent agent will plan drilling to falsify human-generated hypothesis, then only drill to define grades and tons,” Caers stated.

“You can imagine if your hypothesis about the subsurface is completely wrong, then your drilling will be extremely inefficient,” Caers explained.

Rather than filling in a grid regardless of emerging information, the system dynamically adjusts drilling locations to reduce geological uncertainty as efficiently as possible.

World Mining Congress 2026 in Lima

Organizers expect this technological transformation in decision-making under uncertainty to be one of the central themes at the World Mining Congress 2026. Jef Caers serves on the WMC 2026 Program Committee. The congress will run June 24–26 at the Lima Convention Center in Peru and will bring together global leaders from mining, technology and academia to discuss the future of critical minerals and innovation in the sector.

Early bird tickets are available until March 31 at the official website: www.Wmc2026.org/