Notes on early specimen labels suggest its favoured habitat is foothills and primary montane rainforest, and this is reinforced by the locations of recent sightings.

[3] Because it is so rare today, a considerable body of information on the Sumatran ground cuckoo comes only from the records of Tommaso Salvadori, the Italian ornithologist and zoologist who discovered it;[1] there does not seem to have been much effort to learn more about the bird from locals.

[7] In 2017, a camera trap in Batang Gadis National Park took a photo of a Sumatran ground cuckoo, indicating that a previously unknown population may exist in North Sumatra.

[6] Due to ongoing habitat loss and small population size, the Sumatran ground cuckoo is evaluated as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Deforestation is the main threat[2][1] and was found to result in an average 2% loss of forest within Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, one of the bird's primary refuges, between 1985 and 1999.

[9] As the Sumatran ground cuckoo prefers primary forest with dense undergrowth, reforestation is unlikely to be as effective as protective measures for currently-existing habitat.

Now that the species' call has been recorded, it is possible to conduct extensive surveys to better establish its true range, distribution, and population, and to determine its habitat requirements, threats, and conservation needs.

[1] The Sumatran ground cuckoo may benefit if ecotourism is introduced to the area, but this still entails commodifying habitat, and may help in the short-term but would not be a guarantee of future conservation.