Artificial Intelligence tools are at our fingertips and are amazingly efficient at what they do. Let me give you a few examples.
1. From Spreadsheets to Custom Apps
Our flagship Farm Profit Manager tool has always been Excel-based. It is easy to use, people like the format and it is visually appealing. Then Sam and Mack on the Ag View Solutions team spent a few days building an online app. The best part? We’ve made it completely free — with the help of AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT. We can see the real value continues to be in the consulting relationship and the decisions it drives, not just the software. So we spent a few hundred dollars on something that would have cost tens of thousands — or even hundreds of thousands — with a traditional development team. Amazing, when you think about it.
Free Management Tool: Farm Profit Manager is now completely free! Click here for the online tool or spreadsheet.
2. The $20-a-Month Software Developer
A wide range of tools are available to make this happen — Claude, ChatGPT, Grok and Copilot are some of the major ones. Upload a spreadsheet and give it a prompt like: “I want you to build an amazing UI (user interface) and UX (user experience) for this tool. Make it a web-based app I can run on my phone or computer. Fix any errors and make sure it is polished.” Give it a few minutes and watch as it writes code and builds the app right in front of you. You may need a few tweaks, but the results will be remarkably good.
3. Automate the Mundane
Think of every mundane paperwork task you do and ask yourself if AI can do it better. I scanned all of my corn load tickets into a single file, uploaded it to Claude and told it to build me a spreadsheet of all loads to reconcile against my payouts. I proofread, made a few minor adjustments and reconciled 100 loads in 30 minutes — with a clean document to reference in the future. That would’ve taken me half a day in the office before.
4. Your Instant Digital Assistant
Connect Claude Cowork or Microsoft Copilot to your documents. Connect your documents into a smart filing system that can learn your operation and serve as your instant assistant.
A few other practical applications:
- Build your own board of advisers
- Finally build that farm website
- Create a strategic plan for your farm (email me for the tool)
Pro Tip: Download a tool like Wispr Flow — just push a button, speak to your phone or computer, and it transcribes your prompt perfectly. Hit ‘go’ and watch Claude or any of these tools build amazing things.
The future is now — learn these tools, or your operation will get left behind.
