Charting new waters: the role of artificial intelligence in Maritime English education

This paper explores the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) tools into English for Specific Purposes (ESP) instruction, with a particular focus on Maritime English education in Croatia. Inspired by the scholarly contributions of Prof. Boris Pritchard and his pioneering work on the digitalization of Maritime English resources, the paperexamines the role of AI in Maritime English pedagogy, contextualizing it within the global shifts driven by technological innovation and the increasingly globalizedworld. Emphasis is placed on the benefits of AI, including personalized learning, access to authentic maritime discourse, improved communicative competence, andenhanced learner autonomy. The paper further investigates the application of AI tools - such as machine translation, speech recognition, and conversational agents -in the Maritime English classroom and discusses their potential to address persistent pedagogical challenges. However, the paper also critically examines the ethical,infrastructural, and educational challenges associated with AI integration, including algorithmic bias, data privacy, and the urgent need for teacher training. Drawing onCroatian maritime institutions’ historical engagement with ESP and their growing digital repositories, the study underscores the importance of aligning technologicaladvances with national educational policies and professional development. The conclusion advocates for a strategic, interdisciplinary, and ethically informedapproach to embedding AI in Maritime English instruction, enabling Croatian maritime education to meet international demands while preserving pedagogical integrity.