Grainswest - Tech 2026

Tech 2026 Grains West 34 (89) and drafting a document (23) are examples of nuts-and-bolts uses of the tech. Career advice (24), generating ideas (47) and creating a holiday itinerary (83) demonstrate society at large is comfortable allowing AI to think for us. Fake reality TV (11), breaking the rules (29) and Dungeons and Dragons (77) perhaps reveal that most people will still use innovative tech for the silliest of things. The top use is therapy/ companionship (also 1 in 2025), with troubleshooting and fun and nonsense at second and third. Interestingly, the report suggests that as the breadth and depth of usage grows, “so has the anxiety that people are surrendering their cognitive responsibilities to AI,” it reads. “There’s also a parallel concern that they are relying too much on the technology for emotional support. In the business world, we’re seeing lots of activity producing marginal rather than game- changing benefits, so far.” So, when we slip AI into a pair of Blundstones, what do we find? Jack Bobo loves to talk about AI. The conversation today perfectly mirrors the ones he and others had about personal computers 40 years ago. “There was a time when people asked the question, ‘Why would anybody need a computer in their home?’” he said. “It took a little while, but in less than a decade it went from only a few people having a computer at home to a lot of people.” The executive director at the Rothman Family Institute for Food Studies at UCLA, Bobo works to reduce polarization in society, build trust in the food sector, unpack why and where these tensions lie and ultimately produce better outcomes for everyone. It’s plain to him that AI is at the centre of today’s conversation around food and its interconnected systems. Companies large and small are adopting it. Everyone is finding uses for it and as it becomes continually more democratized, it should become further enmeshed in daily life that much faster, he noted. The agriculture industry firmly occupies the middle ground on AI with both leaders and laggards, said Bobo. He added that farmers have been the beneficiaries of AI for more than a decade and points out self- driving tractors as but one example. However, farmers have been slow on the individual level with generative AI. “The general public got access to the benefits of AI later than the farmer, but they’ve been quicker to adopt it into their personal lives than many in the farm community,” he said. The rapid change and embrace of AI reflect blockchain adoption in the last decade, said Bobo. Pioneering farmers who embraced it were paid premiums for their products as they were able to quantify various qualities about their production methods. At the farm level, Bobo suggested, AI has been slower for some because, unlike certain industries, farmers tend to view operations on a yearly basis. When we look at Big Data and the heavy skepticism that was prevalent among the farming community, Bobo believes this will not impede AI, “because they’re going to feel like it actually is giving them more control, not less.” With AI, a farmer arguably FEATURE “The general public got access to the benefits of AI later than the farmer, but they’ve been quicker to adopt it into their personal lives than many in the farm community.” —Jack Bobo Farmers may not be as skeptical about the use of AI as they were about the rise of Big Data, says one expert. This may be because AI gives themmore control rather than less.