While autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are reasonably mature when it comes to like 'mowing the lawn', they are not quite as advanced when it comes to other applications, such as intervention. In this interview, Justin Manley explains the challenges ahead for these vehicles, some of their limiting factors and highlights some of their more unusual uses. He believes that the future is bright for AUVs and there will come a day when instead of one very expensive AUV, we will see many small inexpensive AUVs working together which will offer a powerful approach. It will be like when personal computers were first connected together in a network, offering far more capability.