Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently shared on X about the positive impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on agriculture in India.
He highlighted the struggles of small-town sugarcane farmers who have faced major challenges like debt, pests, droughts, and diseases that harm their crops, sometimes even leading to suicide. However, the use of AI has brought significant changes to their situation.
In a post, Mr. Nadella shared a video showing how AI helped a small farmer in Battis Shirala, Maharashtra, increase crop yields, use fewer chemicals, and save water. He described AI’s effect on agriculture as “phenomenal.” He mentioned a farmer from Baramati Co-op who used AI to improve his land’s productivity. The results showed a decrease in chemical use, better water management, and improved yields. Mr. Nadella also spoke about using geospatial data from drones and satellites to support farmers in their local language.
AI will improve everything https://t.co/KqBvDC9ljl
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 24, 2025
Elon Musk responded to the video, saying, “AI will improve everything.”
In 2022, Microsoft launched an agri-tech project in Baramati with the Agricultural Development Trust (ADT). This project uses AI tools to help farmers grow healthy, sustainable crops. The partnership with Microsoft Research also focuses on using AI, satellite images, and other technologies to bring major changes to the agriculture sector.
Earlier, Satya Nadella admitted that one of his biggest mistakes was not predicting the rise of search engines, a market that Google successfully captured. Microsoft had thought the web would stay decentralized and didn’t realize that search would become such a profitable business model. He called it a valuable lesson, saying, “We (Microsoft) missed what turned out to be the biggest business model on the web because we all assumed the web is all about being distributed.”