After a quick review of historic lightning research, we discuss developments aiming at triggering and guiding lightning using lasers. We recall the limitations inherent to high-energy, nanosecond pulses and discuss the new perspective introduced by the advent of ultrashort, high-power laser pulses and the long ionized filaments they induce in air. After describing a recent field campaign where the triggering of electric activity in thunderclouds by ultrashort lasers was demonstrated for the first time, we discuss perspectives for improvements of both the sequence of laser pulses and the experimental configuration.