The Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) on board the next generation of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES-R) will provide spectral, spatial, and temporal capabilities that significantly exceed those offered by the current GOES Imager. These new instrument capabilities, in tandem with other data sets (e.g. NWP), can be used to generate a variety of products that are capable of automatically detecting and characterizing hazards such as fog/low cloud, volcanic ash, and SO2. Using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Spinning Enhanced Visible/Infrared Radiometer (SEVIRI) as proxies for the GOES-R ABI, it will be shown that quantitative products, such as the probability of Instrument Flight Rules (IFR), probability of volcanic ash, probability of SO2, ash cloud top height, ash loading, and ash effective particle radius, can be generated and are useful for real-time hazard detection and assessment. In addition, while the GOES-R ABI will provide incredible satellite imagery, the 5-minute refresh rate of the ABI will make continuous, real-time, manual inspection of satellite imagery for hazards such as volcanic clouds impractical. Thus, in order to take full advantage of the GOES-R instrument capabilities an automated volcanic cloud alert system is being developed. As will be shown, the GOES-R alert system will be capable of accurately detecting several types of volcanic clouds (ash-dominated, ice topped, and SO2 dominated) as soon as they become visible in satellite imagery. Such a system will significantly increase the timeliness of volcanic cloud advisories, especially when unmonitored volcanoes erupt.