GenAI will shape the future of agriculture, say agritech experts

Amid the dot-com and artificial intelligence (AI) revolutions, India’s agricultural sector remains one of the country’s strongest economic pillars, contributing nearly 20% to the national GDP. 

According to a report by Ernst & Young, agritech, powered by deep technology and innovation, promises a $24 billion opportunity. When fully developed, NITI Aayog estimates this ecosystem could raise farmers’ incomes by 25-35% and add as much as $95 billion to India’s GDP through lower input costs, higher productivity, better price realisation, accessible finance, and new income streams.

From the green revolution to the digital revolution, Indian agriculture has come a long way and is now poised to enter its next chapter, the ‘smart revolution’. 

This wave will be led by Generative AI (Gen AI), said founders of agritech startups Sreeshankar S Nair, Founder and CEO of Brainwired; and Pratik Desai, Founder and CEO of Kissan AI. 

At YourStory’s TechSparks 2025, Desai and Nair offered a glimpse of what the next revolution of Indian farms could look like.  

Fifteen years ago, farmers operated in a reactive mode. For instance, they would take action only after a problem arose—a pest infestation meant using pesticides. Five years ago, technology changed that with sensors and IoT solutions, allowing faster response. “But now, in the last couple of years, what we have seen is it has gone into a predictive methodology where we are already predicting before it happens,” says Nair. 

For Desai, whose roots are in a farmer’s household, AI is a means to bridge one of India’s biggest rural gaps: the knowledge divide. 

“We have 600 million people associated with agriculture, 18% of India's GDP is that…But then there are only 700 different institutes that provide knowledge to 600 million farmers, so there is a knowledge gap and no farmer can go and knock on the door of a professor and ask for help. There’s a big challenge to deliver this knowledge.” 

Both founders stressed that trust and accessibility are the true challenges of agri-tech adoption. Farmers, they noted, don’t care for the jargon, but only results. 

“The moment you start speaking about AI to farmers, they don’t want to talk…It is very important you show them the results,” Nair said. His team at Brainwired depends on veterinarians and field agents to demonstrate value and spread technology adoption through word-of-mouth.

Desai recalled an early lesson in trust when farmers travelled miles to meet him after his tech-product solved mechanical problems they couldn’t crack themselves. He added that once farmers build trust, they don’t switch to other technologies. 

Accessibility, meanwhile, hinges on affordability and infrastructure. 

Brainwired’s solution processes data locally to overcome patchy connectivity and uses low-power modules that last for years. It also runs on a subscription model to ease costs for small farmers. 

Kissan AI, on the other hand, continually optimises inference costs by tuning models and reducing latency.

The on-ground impact is noticeable. 

Nair shared an instance where Brainwired’s sensor detected early-stage mastitis in a farmer’s cow, saving Rs 30,000 in treatment and milk losses. 

Desai shared the story of a Marathi farmer in Jharkhand who, with the help of Kissan AI, learned to convert geranium crop waste into air fresheners, and has since started his own side business.

Both believe clean data and contextual learning are key to making AI work in agriculture.

Kissan AI’s models draw on curated data from agricultural universities and Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs), which are now automated through domain-specific crawlers. Brainwired’s system, powered by sensor-driven data, uses prompt-based interactions to help farmers make quick, relevant decisions, even in regional dialects.

According to the Economic Survey of India 2022-23, India’s agriculture sector has grown by 4.6% in the last six years, with 1,300-plus agritech startups emerging in the sector.

Looking ahead, the founders see a collaborative future. Nair called for IoT subsidies and public-private partnerships, arguing that just as electric vehicles (EVs) and solar panels receive government incentives, IoT devices for farms should receive similar support. 

Desai, who works with the India AI mission and the UN’s Center of Excellence for Agriculture, believes the government’s role should be catalytic, not paternalistic. “Support startups, early-stages products, find product-market fit and let farmers adopt what works,” he said.

On the future farm of 2030, Nair painted a picture of automation across the dairy value chain: from feed to milk logistics; Desai, on the other hand, predicted a shift toward commercial farming as landholdings shrink and productivity declines. “Eventually, industrial-scale farming will enable true AI adoption,” he said.

As for the next big technology in agritech, both placed their bets on Gen AI. 

“But it will be a combination of Gen AI, IoT, dronetech, everything coming together, in tandem,” Nair says. 

Their conversation ended with both the founders reminding that the next revolution in Indian agriculture won’t be about machines replacing men, but machines empowering farmers. As Desai summed it up, “Our success isn’t measured by revenue, but by the stories we create for farmers.”