I do a fair amount of night sailing and I consider and AIS transponder to an indispensable safety aid, especially if you're routinely crossing freight or ferry shipping channels.
Also, apart from the obvious safety benefit, AIS can help you identify fishing boats and FISH! If you're in South Australian boats and you see a tug traveling at ~1 knot to/from Port Lincoln, it is almost certainly towing a tuna pen

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PS Did you know they let the big tunas go because the quota is by total weight, not the number of fish caught? Stupid, but that's the way it is.