System has been trained by Bayer agronomists and proprietary data to benefit farmers, agronomic advisors, and other industry users
Bayer has announced the pilot of an expert GenAI system that it has said will benefit farmers and up-level agronomists in their daily work.
The company said it had been using proprietary agronomic data to train a large language model (LLM) with years of internal data, insights from thousands of trials within its vast testing network, and centuries of aggregated experience from Bayer agronomists around the world.
The result, it said, was an expert system that quickly and accurately answered questions related to agronomy, farm management, and Bayer agricultural products.
“Our unique GenAI system has the potential to serve agronomists and benefit farmers all over the world, further advancing AI as an indispensable technology for agriculture,” said Amanda McClerren, CIO and head of digital transformation and information technology for Bayer’s Crop Science Division.
“We’ll continue to use traditional AI to develop better products, and we’re also committed to harnessing new GenAI technology in a thoughtful way that augments and supports knowledgeable experts across the industry, bringing value to farmers and those who serve them.”
Developed in collaboration with Microsoft as leading technology partner and Ernst & Young (EY) as an industry partner, Bayer said it was exploring ways to integrate the expert GenAI system into its digital offerings, and the company anticipated ”broad opportunities for collaboration” with other agricultural offerings and partners.
Bayer said that the tool would benefit millions of smallholder farmers in the future by democratising access to agronomic advice and product information critical to feeding communities and improving global food security.
“AI and automation are helping farms of all sizes produce more while using fewer natural resources, and we’re starting to see how they can enhance decision-making on almost any plot of land,” said Ranveer Chandra, managing director, research for industry and CTO, agri-food at Microsoft.
“With Bayer’s strengths in data science, digital, and especially agronomic expertise, we’re pleased to be contributing to an expert system that will make agronomic understanding more accessible and empower those responsible for feeding the planet.”
Bayer said it was aiming to expand the pilot of the expert GenAI system to selected agronomists and potentially farmers as early as this year, while continuing to advance a separate GenAI prototype allowing users to directly query their own farm data.
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