From spreadsheets to AI: Deere gives farmers new features in Operations Center, JD
John Deere has launched JD, an AI tool that turns historical farm data into actionable insights to boost profitability. The post From spreadsheets to AI: Deere gives farmers new features in Operations Center, JD appeared first on The Robot Report.
Overview
For generations, farmers tracked their fields on paper ledgers and spreadsheets; now, John Deere is letting them talk directly to their operational data with JD, a new conversational AI tool it said is designed to turn years of private field metrics into instant, profit-boosting answers. JD operates exclusively on the historical data for each farm.
Operations Center helps farmers wade through data
For generations, farmers have tracked their data, first on paper and then in spreadsheets. Analyzing that information was always a challenge, depending on the farmer’s analytical skills — or lack thereof — noted John Deere.
The Moline, Ill.-based company said Operations Center is the new heart of digital operations for its customers. Farmers and growers can use the mobile platform to track inputs and outputs and manage the variables that control modern farm equipment.
Seeking to reinforce customer trust alongside the rollout of JD, Deere stated that farm data belongs to producers and that farming data privacy and operational value are central to its platform.
“I want to put a punctuation mark on a five-letter word you’re going to hear a lot [today]: T R U S T,” said Jahmy Hindman, chief technology officer at John Deere. “You’re going to hear a lot about AI. You’re going to hear a lot about trust. That’s an important element of how we think about product development.”
“We certainly do our own testing,” he added. “Does it create value? But it also helps to have a third party, an independent source, [like Iowa State University] to be able to do that across their own testing capabilities, and then across their outreach to real farmers who are using this technology on real farms and are providing real feedback relative to the value.”
JD enables farmers to have a conversation with the vast amount of field, machine, and operational data they generate, said Deere. The company claimed that they can use it to improve yields, drive savings, and strengthen farm profitability through AI.
Deere follows growth of frontier AI models for JD
“The AI development team has been tracking the growth and evolution of generative AI over the past three years,” Melissa Neuendorf, principal product manager for customer AI solutions at John Deere, told The Robot Report.
During that time, the Deere AI team has tracked frontier large language models (LLMs) and how they can benefit its customers. According to Neuendorf, most customers “don’t even know what an LLM is, nor do they care; our job is to hide that complexity from them.”
Beyond machine learning for functions like perception and obstacle avoidance, the goal of AI development at Deere is to find ways to improve farm performance, however that’s measured, she said.
Details
The first AI product announcement came in August 2025 with the release of Help AI, a feature in Operations Center that enables users to ask questions about equipment setup and debugging. This feature employed AI to assist users in quickly resolving setup and repair issues.
Now, with JD, farmers can ask open-ended questions of their farm data, and JD will analyze their corpus of historical farm data to extract answers.
Instead of searching across multiple dashboards or reports, farmers can ask questions such as:
- How did my fuel use during tillage this year compare with the past three years? — helping identify best practices and resulting in fuel savings
- How did singulation compare across my fields, and what impact did it have on yield? – enabling a better understanding of how equipment settings can impact yield
- Which sprayer operator is covering the most acres per hour? – resulting in understanding operational efficiencies
- When is the optimal time to harvest based on historical trends? — enabling better planning and management of labor
When asked which frontier models JD runs under the hood, Neuendorf replied that Deere isn’t releasing that information, primarily because the pace of innovation continues to accelerate, and the company reserves the right to swap out the underlying engine as the technology evolves.
JD functionality remains free to farmers
All of the Operations Center customer data lives in the cloud, said Deere, which reiterated its commitment to data security. Operations Center remains a free tool available to any farmer, regardless of the vintage or color of their farm equipment.
In addition, John Deere doesn’t charge for Gen 4 modem connections to equipped farm equipment. The new JD functionality will also remain free to users of Operations Center.
The company said it will open early access to JD this fall and expand access over the next year.
Editor’s note: Field robotics and physical AI are among the session track topics at RoboBusiness 2026, which will be on Oct. 20 and 21 in Santa Clara, Calif. Register now to attend.
Register now and save on your pass to RoboBusiness 2026FurrowVision and ExactEmerge enter full production
John Deere also announced that its FurrowVision and ExactEmerge planter upgrades are entering full production for all new planter systems. The technology was initially unveiled in 2025 and deployed to pilot customers in the 2025/2026 growing season.
The FurrowVision technology uses a vision camera and a laser-line projector to image a furrow in real time on a seed drill. Systems equipped with FurrowVision deploy three cameras, one on the left boom, one on the center, and one on the right boom, to measure the quality of the seed furrow.
The system can then modify the wheel pressure to improve the furrow shape and alert the operator if the furrow quality starts to deviate, Deere said.
Illustration of the camera field of view and laser line orientation in FurrowVision. | Credit: John Deere
Deere reported disappointing revenue in Q3
John Deere recently reported FY Q3 2026 results that highlighted headwinds in its Production and Precision Agriculture division, mostly a result of lower shipment volumes.
The post From spreadsheets to AI: Deere gives farmers new features in Operations Center, JD appeared first on The Robot Report.
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