AI-Powered Ag Advisor Learns Quickly
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
In April, Farmers Business Network released Norm, a new AI-powered ag advisor. Since its launch, Kit Barron, head of data science and analytics says Norm is already learning and improving. He says soil conditions are one example.
Barron… “The soil conditions is a great one. The kind of first version of Norm did not know anything about the weather and so based on how many farmers have been asking about kind of near-term forecasts and soil conditions, we made that a priority and so I think over the next couple of days, we should have the soil conditions module built out. And so we basically adjust the national weather service data, we combine it with a model on the data science team that looks at soil type along with temperature and recent rainfall and develops a kind of soil conditions index and so we can report out on that.”
Charles Baron, co-founder and CMO of FBN, says the biggest benefit of Norm is how timely they can be to answer crucial farmer questions.
Baron… “We got to see exactly what farmers want to ask and then Kit and the team can deploy that still in the period where that’s a relevant question, so the technology is evolving almost as quickly as the needs are being identified.”
Barron… “And to put this in context, like that would’ve taken, you know, three months of development two years ago. What’s amazing about this technology is how quickly it allows us to iterate.”
Both Charles and Kit hope to release new Norm features like this every other week on Farmers Business Network.
