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Bayer announces pilot of expert GenAI system to benefit farmers and experienced agronomists in their daily work. The company has been training large language models (LLMs) using proprietary agronomic data, which includes years of internal data, insights from thousands of trials across a vast test network, and centuries of aggregated experience from Bayer’s agronomists around the world.
The result is an expert system that can quickly and accurately answer questions related to agriculture, farm management and Bayer agricultural products. The intuitive system responds to natural language and can produce expert messages in seconds instead of a time-consuming process.
Validated by agriculturists, the pilot program has unlocked productivity for the U.S. Bayer team while significantly outperforming out-of-the-box LLMs currently serving the agricultural market.
Future benefits compared to today’s reality: Farmers ask agronomic consultants a series of detailed questions about product characteristics, performance under specific conditions and application rates.
Today, consultants scour online sources, send text messages to colleagues, gather information from multiple sources and respond, while farmers wait hours or days for much-needed information. Bayer’s expert GenAI system is changing the game, making better information faster and more accessible.
Amanda McClerren, chief information officer and head of digital transformation and information technology at Bayer Crop Science:
“Our unique GenAI system has the potential to serve agriculturists and benefit farmers around the world, further advancing artificial intelligence as an indispensable technology in agriculture.”
“While we will continue to use traditional artificial intelligence to develop better products, we are also committed to leveraging new GenAI technology in thoughtful ways, empowering and supporting knowledgeable experts across the industry to bring value to farmers and those who serve them. .”
Developed in collaboration with leading technology partner Microsoft and industry partner Ernst & Young (EY), Bayer is exploring ways to integrate expert GenAI systems into its digital products, with the company anticipating widespread collaboration opportunities with other agricultural products and partners .
The tool is designed as a global function that will benefit millions of smallholder farmers in the future by democratizing access to agronomic advice and product information critical to solving community food problems and improving global food security.
Ranveer Chandra, Managing Director, Industrial Research and Chief Technology Officer, Agri-Food Division, Microsoft:
“Artificial intelligence and automation are helping farms of all sizes increase yields while using fewer natural resources, and we’re starting to see how they can enhance decision-making on virtually any land.”
“With Bayer’s strengths in data science, digitalization and, above all, agronomic expertise, we are pleased to contribute to an expert system that will make agronomic knowledge easier to understand and assist those responsible for feeding the planet . ”
Bayer aims to expand pilots of the expert GenAI system to selected agronomists and potential farmers as early as this year, while continuing to advance a separate GenAI prototype that would allow users to query their own farm data directly.
Because they also draw insights from closed data sets, these GenAI tools are unique to agriculture and will provide farmers, agriculturists, and other industry users with greater insights than out-of-the-box LLMs that only use open source data. Come to a more meaningful value.
Advancing solutions to enable “a cloud-connected land”
In addition to working with Microsoft on its specialist GenAI system, Bayer late last year announced an update to their strategic partnership to bring AgPowered Services, a ready-made capability to the agri-food industry.
Bayer® Historical Weather delivers capabilities previously available only for internal use, bringing a comprehensive weather data set covering the past 40 years to Azure Agricultural Data Manager and providing detailed field-level weather insights for agricultural regions around the world.
The new functionality integrates IBM tools, including the IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite, to inform weather risk assessment and actuarial processes. Bayer and now other companies will also use it to predict year-to-year changes in crop seasonality and yields, as well as to train agronomic models.
Building on its commitment to providing machine data connectivity with leading original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), Bayer is developing a connector that provides access to irrigation data from Lindsay Corporation, an industry-leading irrigation solutions provider.
This expands the data types available to enterprise customers of Azure Data Manager, allowing them to connect to irrigation data in the same seamless manner as weather, imagery, OEM data and other data types.
For technology providers, it reduces the cost of technology investments required to develop these tools. For farmers, it accelerates the development of digital tools to help them monitor, measure and control water use in their fields.
The new cloud product will also support regulatory and sustainability reporting. For example, capabilities that provide supply chain traceability can help ensure compliance with new laws such as the EU Deforestation Regulation, which is expected to come into force at the end of 2024.
Bayer® Smart Boundary ID uses satellite imagery to detect field boundaries and automatically identify geographic areas within fields where seasonal agricultural activities occur.
This solution helps commodity traders ensure compliance and serves food companies and financial institutions looking to monitor growth progress.
Jeremy Williams, head of digital agriculture at Bayer Crop Science:
“Whether you are a farmer using digital tools or a company operating downstream, you need technology that can help your business adapt to a changing environment. Through our AgPowered service, we provide easy and convenient access to digital tools, enabling the industry to And businesses benefit. Drive innovation.”
“There is both a huge opportunity and an urgent need for digital technology to provide better services to farmers and industry, and we aim to achieve this through cloud connectivity.”
In industry preview, Bayer and Microsoft’s cloud offerings will enable organizations to access off-the-shelf capabilities and build on top of powerful digital infrastructure, rather than developing them from scratch. This shortens the time to market for new capabilities, opening up more opportunities for farmers and value chain customers.
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