It has been a dozen years since the first U.S. Precision Dairy conference, and to give you an idea of how much has changed in the interim, the first Hoard’s Dairyman coverage of the event began with this observation: “Just as cellphones are slowly phasing out landlines, some current mechanics and methods of operation on dairy farms will be pushed aside as we make way for new technologies.”
As the University of Minnesota conference organizer Marcia Endres pointed out, “It’s hard to keep up.” Technology writ large has undergone a revolution in the past few years with the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), and dairy farming tech is rapidly evolving to take advantage of these advances. Stakeholders are scrambling to make sense — and try to make dollars — of it all, and the 2025 Precision Dairy Conference, held in June in Bloomington, Minn., was designed to offer perspectives from every angle. Organizers included “industry leaders, technology developers, academics, and — I think very importantly — the producers using technology in their dairies,” Endres said.
AI advantages, human imperatives
The producers sat on panels and fielded questions after their presentations and many of the audience queries were geared toward “what works and what doesn’t yet work so well” on farms at a granular level, Endres noticed. Topics and technologies included genomics, herd management software, sensors, dashboards, and data integration, all offered up for discussion to attendees who had traveled from as far as New Zealand for the conference.
Although innovation and the promise of future improvements loomed large, Endres, along with several industry experts, emphasized that technology is a tool and not a replacement for humans at the dairy. Even the potential of generative AI models, which “The Future of Agriculture” author Aidan Connolly spoke about, was given a human-centric reality check, as the keynote speaker predicted, “AI will not replace humans.” Yet he was quick to add, “But humans using AI will replace those who don't.”
For Endres, this underscored the way generative AI came up throughout the keynote speeches and the panel discussions. Barb Peterson, a veterinarian in the Texas Panhandle, advised “Trust but verify” when using tools like ChatGPT; other presenters pointed out that while AI can enhance our capabilities, it is still up to the producer to make improvements based on the information it provides. Streamlined and continuous staff training, data that is not just collected but also analyzed to reach actionable conclusions, and system integration are hurdles strewn along the sprint toward the next precision technologies. Endres said, “Although there will always be some challenges, the future is bright for dairy technology.”
