What you should know:
To use artificial intelligence in your business for a competitive advantage — not just a gimmick:
- Ask better questions than most people
- Combine AI with real-world experience
- Execute on the answers
For Rachael Sharp, dry weather hasn’t made planting go any easier in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. And when a planter went down, the first thing she did was pull up Chat GPT.
“I pulled up the part number, and I saw that I’d actually entered in there last year. So it told me the date I changed it, and that was helpful, because I was trying to figure out why is this wearing out so quickly?” she says. “We’re in desperate need of rain, and we’re pulling in some pretty hard non-irrigated land right now. I logged that we changed the bearing again, and so next time, knock on wood, it hopefully doesn’t go out again, but if it does I can look and see I changed it twice in the last year.”
That’s just one of many examples of how Sharp is using ChatGPT to manage equipment, her time, and the farm business. She and her father, Don, are featured in an OpenAI commercial, which premiered during the Super Bowl.
And she’s in good company with other farmers in how to use the artificial intelligence platforms.
Marc Arnusch, the 2025 Top Producer of the Year, says ChatGPT is the most used app on his phone.
Jeremy Jack, leader of Silent Shade Planting Company the 2023 Top Producer of the Year, uses AI as his daily management teammate from agronomy and business decisions.
Here are the four ways these farmers use AI every day on the farm.
1. Make better decisions faster
Colorado farmer Arnusch uses ChatGPT and Grok to narrow down his consideration set when making decisions.
“It helps on the strategic side of things, and when making a decision, I’ll let it give the top four or five things to choose from, which helps when there’s a million choices,” he says. “It really is like my funnel. I’ll set up my phone on my dashboard and just dictate to it. Then when I’m back at the farm office, my wife Jill is relieved because I’ve already processed out loud with the AI tool.”
While most farms collect data, Jack uses AI to make decisions, particularly agronomic.
“I uploaded multiple years of soil data across our farms,” he says. “And we’ve found ways to manage fertilizer better, for example with sulfur.”
The data interpretation has shifted his thinking by connecting the yield zones with as-applied fertility and return on investment.
Jack is also using the technology to double check every spray application — from rates, to tank mix, to nozzle selection, to pressure optimization.
Sharp has also found AI helpful in managing chemical applications. She can remember chemical boxes marked up with her father’s calculations by hand.
“I tell the prompt what I’m spraying, where I’m spraying, how many acres, tank size, and then I let it tell me what to order,” she says. “Over time, it’s learned which products are liquid and which are dry flowables. And it’s helped me keep track of the inventory we have so we don’t end up with pallets of odds and ends.”
2. Be more efficient
When it comes to where to start with AI, Sharp has one piece of advice.
“Think of the task that you don’t like to do at the end of the day. For me, I didn’t want to do paperwork at the end of the day,” she says. “So I threw it over to ChatGPT, and I said, hey, this is what I planted today, this is the date, and I left it at that. I started really, really simple.”
Now, she’ll record things directly in the field or in the truck. She says it has helped with FSA 578 forms. And in day-to-day operations, she’s found benefits for time management and accuracy in all record keeping.
“We have seed samples that require a handwritten seed form that I turn in along with the sample, but I spoke into my phone and said, hey, Chat GPT, I need you to log that I sent this variety, this lot number, on this date, to the lab. And so, that’s probably one of 15 entries that I’ve made over the course of a month. And at the end when we finally turn in our last sample to the lab, I’ll ask it for a spreadsheet with all that listed,” she says.
3. Think more clearly about complex problems
Jeremy Jack often asks ChatGPT “What does this mean for my farm?” with current events.
“With the war in Iran, global fertilizer supply chain concerns, and even things like USDA reports, it’s given helpful perspective in how to think about what’s happening off the farm but impacts the farm.”
And he’s found success in using the platform to specifically think about the business strategy for his farm with vendors, including lenders, landowners and more.
4. Manage more professionally
Jack has been active with an advisory board for their farm, but AI has become like a boardroom in his pocket.
“I bounce ideas—pressure test if you will—before it costs me real money,” he says. “This includes input purchases, land agreements, and equipment purchases.”
He’s also come to use it in his external communications about the farm including his regular social media posts on LinkedIn.
When it comes to team management, Arnusch has input culture index results for vendors and employees, then the AI compares their individual characteristics with the job they are being asked to do.
“This has been a breakthrough,” he says. “It’s shown me that at no fault of their own, why some people fail at what they are being asked to do. It wasn’t because they weren’t working hard or doing the job. It was stretching them beyond what they can do.”
He gives the example of a farm foreman position on the farm, and how he used this process to match the candidate with the role.
