Saxdor Yachts AI-Boosted Copilot Smart Assist

For owners of Saxdor yachts, Saxdor AI is aimed at making boating easier, better and more intuitive. Courtesy Saxdor Yachts

A few years ago, I helped deliver a custom, carbon-fiber racing sailboat from Ketchikan, Alaska, to Seattle. While I’d raced on the boat for years, this trip was different. The yacht’s owner wasn’t aboard, and instead of taking the well-trodden Inside Passage between Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia, we sailed down Vancouver’s desolate west coast. Help was far away, and we weren’t carrying satellite communications, thus placing a premium on self-sufficiency. Our crew was skilled and seasoned, and the yacht’s designer was on board, but I can remember a few times when having a bit more information about the onboard systems would have been nice.

For owners of Saxdor yachts, Saxdor AI is aimed at making boating easier, better and more intuitive. For all the rest of us, this AI copilot provides insight into how boatbuilders and marine electronics companies can combine AI, digital switching and connectivity to improve the user experience.

Saxdor is based in Helsinki, Finland, and builds production yachts from 27 to 46 feet length overall. In 2024, the company launched the MySaxdor app and connectivity solution, and in 2025, it unveiled Saxdor AI, a large language model that Saxdor developed with Finnish tech company Cadentia. Saxdor AI resides under the MySaxdor umbrella. It’s a smart assistant that learns from its owners, and that is available 24/7/365 to answer questions about a Saxdor vessel or its compatible onboard equipment.

“As we become more digitally savvy, we expect to encounter the same kind of user interfaces that we do in other areas of our life—that same lifestyle must continue in boating,” says Erna Rusi, Saxdor’s CEO. “We think that it’s a market demand. It’s also very vital for getting new people to [feel] comfortable, to offer this kind of continuation with their lifestyle.”

As with other LLMs such as ChatGPT, Saxdor AI answers questions that users type into the MySaxdor app. Soon, users will also have functionality similar to talk-to-text.

Saxdor AI is aimed at making boating better, easier and more intuitive for owners of Saxdor-built yachts. Courtesy Saxdor Yachts

The MySaxdor app requires an Android or iOS wireless device. A Saxdor Connect hub, which is standard equipment aboard Saxdor’s 320, 340 and 400 series yachts, provides cellular connectivity to a cloud where Saxdor AI resides. Boaters who venture outside of cellular range can connect the hub to an onboard satellite-communications system such as Starlink via Wi-Fi. While the MySaxdor app is free, cellular connectivity and AI support require a subscription after the first year of new-vessel ownership.

Saxdor AI is an assistant, not an electronic captain. “We are not talking about navigational capabilities,” says Ludvig Liljequist, Saxdor Yacht’s digital lead. Users can ask navigation or rules-of-the-road questions, but the model won’t tell a skipper that she needs to take evasive actions to prevent a collision. “The decision, at least today, should be made by the captain, and the copilot can help you,” Liljequist says.

Copilot help of the AI variety, of course, requires cloud connectivity and telemetry. Saxdor has a partnership with Brunswick Corp., so Saxdor boats carry Mercury outboards and Simrad electronics. The Saxdor Connect hub connects with the boat’s NMEA 2000 network, its Mercury Smartcraft controller area network bus system, and, if applicable, its digital-switching system. The hub shares this information with the cloud, which gives the MySaxdor app and Saxdor AI access to networked information.

Additionally, Liljequist says, Saxdor AI has a comprehensive schematic of all equipment and systems aboard each owner’s specific yacht. It can also detect equipment, such as a new radar, that’s fitted after delivery.

An example of how this access to schematics and telemetric data lets Saxdor AI help owners involves error messages.

“As we become more digitally savvy, we expect to encounter the same kind of user interfaces that we do in other areas of our life—that same lifestyle must continue in boating,” says Erna Rusi, Saxdor’s CEO. Courtesy Saxdor Yachts

“You can use Saxdor AI if you have a notification,” Liljequist says. “So, say shore power is disconnected. You could go in and ask the AI, ‘Why does this happen? What should I do?’ And it will tell you to go to your boat, and you plug in the cable.”

While reconnecting shore power is low-hanging fruit, Liljequist says Saxdor AI can also offer users steps to address clogged fuel filters or tripped fuses. “It gives you suggestions, and it helps you even with step-by-step guidance,” Liljequist says. And because the AI has access to the vessel’s schematics, it can tell an owner where to physically start troubleshooting. “You can also ask, ‘Where do I find this in my boat?’”

While these AI-based suggestions can obviate the need for calling a dealer who might not be available, Liljequist says Saxdor AI is primarily aimed at enhancing ways that users enjoy their yachts. “You could ask, ‘I’m at this location. I have four hours to spend, and I would like to see some beautiful views.’ Or, ‘I want to go to a nice sandbank,’ and it will help you,” he says.

Users can also ask Saxdor AI for restaurant, marina or fuel dock suggestions, which the AI can deliver based on the yacht’s location. “You can make a parallel to Google Maps,” Liljequist says, noting that Saxdor AI trades on trusted data, rather than the open internet. “We have quite a lot of firewalls and boundaries set up because we don’t want the AI to be able to hallucinate.”

Liljequist says that because Saxdor has access to consolidated data about the kinds of questions users are asking their AI copilots, the company can better focus its development efforts. For example, if many users ask wind-related questions each month, Saxdor could identify a trusted source and work with them to develop an application programming interface.

In general, Liljequist and Rusi say, Saxdor AI can help lower the barrier of entry for owners who are new to the Saxdor family or to boating in general. “We’re not trying to be a tech company,” Rusi says. “We want to be at the peak of the customer experience.”

Users can ask Saxdor AI navigation questions, but it won’t advise on collision avoidance. Courtesy Saxdor Yachts

To that end, Saxdor has a virtual showroom with digital twin models developed by Younite, another Finnish tech company. This photorealistic feature, Rusi says, allows customers to configure different models, ask the AI tool if specific features can be added to certain models, and view configured yachts at different times of day. These digital twins can be “delivered” to an owner much faster than physical yachts. This, says Liljequist, allows users to digitally explore their yacht, and its systems and electronics, using Saxdor AI prior to delivery of the real thing.

Integration of the Saxdor Connect hub to a vessel’s digital-switching system and data backbones lets owners do things such as activate the yacht’s air conditioning prior to arrival. It also helps Saxdor AI to better advise users on maintaining their yachts. For example, Saxdor AI can generate pre-cruising checklists, and it can monitor engine hours and advise users on when they need to schedule oil changes or other tasks.

A user can also tell Saxdor AI that she is planning on leaving for a weeklong cruise and expects to run the engines for about 70 hours. The user, Liljequist says, could ask Saxdor AI if any maintenance items should be addressed prior to departing.

Saxdor AI can also learn users’ patterns. Liljequist says that if the AI knows its owner typically uses the yacht on weekends and leaves the refrigerator running, it can advise users to connect to shore power prior to disembarking.

While Saxdor AI is a proprietary technology, it’s not a massive gamble to think that other boatbuilders or marine-electronics companies could create similar copilots. It’s also not a huge leap to consider that the line could blur between copilot technologies and autonomous-vessel technologies. This could become especially interesting if autopilots, collision-avoidance technologies and rules of the road are pulled into the algorithms.  

Tire-Kicking 2.0

Saxdor AI’s digital-twin technology helps facilitate new-boat sales and ownership, but it can also bolster brokerage sales. Saxdor AI collects telemetric data from Saxdor’s yachts, so the technology can—with permission— provide insight into how a yacht was maintained, including information about old errors and how they were addressed.

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