Farmers Business Network, Google create advanced AI farming tool. The tool will provide farmers with advice specific to their unique agronomic, financial, equipment and opertional situations. Reporter/Analyst October 1, 2026 SASKATOON - Farmers Business Network is partnering with Google AI Futures Fund to bring advanced artificial intelligence innovations to farmers. Most AI tools provide farmers with generic advice. Tool will customize advice. The tool FBN and Google are developing will be specific to a farmer's soil type, their crops, the weather patterns in their area, the local market and their specific equipment and financial positions. Charles Baron, chief marketing officer and cofounder of FBN, said the firm collects a lot of farm-specific data in addition to offering growers grain marketing, crop input buying and other services. The firm's new AI agent will be able to conduct a "cross-domain analysis" of the data and the services, resulting in "executable actions." "An example of that would be running a yield prediction that then connects to a farmer's marketing strategy and then be able to take that next step and purchase the product or sell grain or hedge," he said. Read also. Why it matters. Farmers are keenly interested in how AI can improve their operations. The tool will provide agronomic, grain marketing, equipment and farm business advice and marry that with the firm's existing digital tools for trading grain, buying inputs and equipment parts, qualifying for regenerative premiums and other services. "That's very unique because now a farmer can say, 'help me make the decision,' and then take action - buy the products, sell the grain, capture the premium," said Baron. He stressed that a farmer's personal data will remain within the domain of FBN. "We're not sending any farmer's unique identifiable information to Google," he said. FBN was at the forefront of deploying AI, launching its AI system, Norm, three years ago. It was named after Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution. "That was more of a chat interface," said Baron. "It didn't connect to your farm's data, and it didn't connect to also being able to take an action. You couldn't tell the AI to go find the best priced herbicide and then buy it." But it was still a popular tool with FBN's more than 140,000 members in the United States and Canada. They asked it tens of thousands of questions. FBN conducted an AI training session at a farmer-to-farmer event in Omaha, Nebraska, earlier this year that was standing room only. Farmers are showing keen interest in AI. "There is a lot of interest from growers in using AI," said Baron. "You're just seeing an explosion of that around all of farming right now." Google has been a partner and an investor in FBN since the early days of the company. The new agreement further cements that relationship. Google has agreed to provide FBN with early access to its pre-market AI models. "We'll be able to build and train and test our AI systems on the most advanced models as they're being built," said Baron. Certain aspects of the new enhanced AI tool will be available to FBN members in the coming weeks as the company rolls out early versions of personalized AI analysis of their farms. That service will be free to all FBN members. Over time, the firm may add more powerful features to its AI agent that will require extra yet-to-be determined fees. Get more in your inbox This field is hidden when viewing the form This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Free - Unsubscribe anytime

Farmers Business Network partners with Google AI Futures Fund to advance AI for family farmers. September 30, 2026 Farmers Business Network (FBN) has partnered with Google AI Futures Fund (AIFF) to accelerate the development of an AI Context Engine designed to provide family farmers with a more integrated view of their operations and support future agentic agriculture solutions. The platform is intended to connect agronomic, financial, equipment and operational data with environmental and market conditions, enabling task-specific AI agents to support interdependent farm decisions and execute commercial actions through FBN's platform. FBN plans to roll out early versions of the Context Engine this fall. As part of the collaboration, Google will provide FBN with early access to frontier AI models and expertise in model development, while both organizations will evaluate advanced models against complex agricultural reasoning tasks. "FBN has established a decade of trust with hundreds of thousands of farmers in the US and Canada, and has been on the forefront of deploying AI in ag," said Jonathan Silber, Co-Founder and Director, AI Futures Fund. "Together we believe that this partnership will help shape a greater future for farmers, everyday food consumers, and sustainable agriculture." "FBN's mission is to help family farms thrive and compete - enabling access to the best emerging AI systems while being tailored to their farms is key," said Diego Casanello, CEO of FBN. "Software isn't the bottleneck anymore - securing rich farm context is. Our Context Engine for Ag will enable our AI system, Norm(TM), and in the future third-party developers, to build transformative tools, while keeping farmers in full control of their data."