Researchers introduced vConTACT3, a machine‑learning framework that enables scalable, hierarchical classification of eukaryotic and prokaryotic viruses across taxonomic ranks. Published in Nature Biotechnology, the tool addresses the surge in viral genomic data and standardizes classification by integrating sequence features with ML‑driven clustering. vConTACT3 promises to accelerate virus discovery, surveillance and comparative genomics by providing reproducible, multirank taxonomic assignments—a capability with implications for viral epidemiology, pathogen discovery and regulatory reference sets for diagnostics.