What’s the story?
Niantic Spatial and Spexi Geospatial have announced a partnership that combines drone imagery capture with 3D reconstruction technology for physical AI.
Why it matters
Customers will be able to commission drone captures and receive geo-referenced 3D Gaussian splats through tools embedded in Spexi’s platform.
The bigger picture
Spexi’s drone network and Niantic Spatial’s reconstruction pipeline are being aligned to support larger-scale mapping and physical AI model training.
May 27, 2026 – Niantic Spatial and Spexi Geospatial, a provider of standardized drone imagery and mapping data solutions, have today announced a partnership to combine Spexi’s aerial data network with Niantic Spatial’s reconstruction technology, turning drone imagery into 3D intelligence for physical AI.
Under the partnership, customers of both companies will be able to access Niantic Spatial’s 3D modeling pipeline through its Reconstruction API. Customers can commission drone captures and receive high-fidelity, geometrically accurate 3D reconstructions as 3D Gaussian splats, accessible through a Niantic Spatial Viewer and measurement tool embedded within the Spexi World platform.
According to the companies, the reconstructions are geo-referenced with coordinates and can easily be placed into a map of a large area. Spexi has also been chosen as a preferred drone imagery provider for training Niantic Spatial’s real-world foundation models for physical AI, expanding coverage to city-scale data and beyond.
“For physical AI to work in the real world, it needs a foundation grounded in reality. Combining Spexi’s capture network with our reconstruction technology and real-world models gets us significantly closer to that and delivers real operational value for our customers,” said Inhi Cho Suh, CEO, Niantic Spatial. “Until now, high-quality 3D reconstruction has largely operated at the scale of an object or building. This partnership takes it to city scale and more.”
Niantic Spatial and Spexi noted that these metric-scale 3D reconstructions of physical environments stitch together multiple drone scans of real-world spaces to create intelligent models that are applicable for simulation, location, and training. Additional use cases listed by the companies include infrastructure inspection, insurance risk assessment, energy site analysis, asset management, and 3D measurement.
Spexi operates an aerial data network with more than 10,000 drone pilots. Using autonomous and standardized flight protocols optimized for machine learning, the company has mapped more than six million acres at 2.8 cm resolution, which is ten times sharper than satellite imagery, according to the companies. Niantic Spatial’s reconstruction pipeline has also been calibrated to Spexi’s capture workflows.
“Together, Spexi and Niantic Spatial deliver a drone-to-3D pipeline that will redefine the next generation of physical AI, unlocking more accurate, up-to-date, and immersive representations of the built environment,” said Bill Lakeland, CEO, Spexi. “Partnering with Niantic Spatial means customers can now go from raw imagery to actionable 3D intelligence in one seamless workflow. That’s a step change in what drone data can achieve for real-world applications.”
For more information about Niantic Spatial and its reconstruction technology and physical AI initiatives, click here. For more information on Spexi Geospatial and its aerial data network platform, click here.
Image / video credit: Niantic Spatial / Spexi Geospatial
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About the author
Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix, where he has spent years immersed in the XR ecosystem, tracking its evolution from early prototypes to the technologies shaping the future of human experience. While primarily covering the latest AR and VR news, his interests extend to the wider world of human augmentation, from AI and robotics to haptics, wearables, and brain–computer interfaces.