Scientists created an AI system that uses facial recognition and real-time, touchscreen testing to automate cognitive studies of capuchin monkeys in the wild. The American Journal of Primatology published a proof-of-concept for the novel method - dubbed CapuchinAI - developed by researchers at Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology. The article provides a roadmap for the first scalable, systematic way to evaluate and monitor the cognitive abilities of wild primates. The primate brain didn't evolve in a lab, it evolved in complex, competitive environments. Yet primate cognition is rarely studied in the wild because the experimental control needed to measure cognition is difficult in unpredictable environments." Marcela Benítez, Emory assistant professor of anthropology and senior author of the paper "CapuchinAI" integrates a compact, battery-powered computing system into a field-research platform. The system identifies an approaching monkey, presents a learning task tailored to that individual on a touchscreen, and automatically delivers a food reward if the monkey performs the task correctly. Field tests of the prototype in the Taboga Forest Reserve of Costa Rica found that CapuchinAI identifies individual capuchins with 97% accuracy, following training on still images and videos. Wild capuchins rapidly habituated and learned touchscreen-reward associations, demonstrating that the system provides a scalable field method for cognitive testing, while also mapping individual differences across tasks. 'The minds behind the personalities' "This project builds on the legacy of Frans de Waal," says Federico Sánchez Vargas, first author of the paper and an Emory PhD student of anthropology. De Waal pioneered studies of animal cognition as director of Emory's Living Links Center for the Advanced Study of Ape and Human Evolution, while also writing best-selling books that helped popularize the field. He passed away in 2024. In addition to lab-based behavioral experiments, de Waal "gave us intimate, beautiful portraits of