CNH Industrial is not building the future of agricultural automation in isolation.
Instead, the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is bringing the farmer along for the journey, sharing prototypes and ensuring new capabilities address growers’ biggest problems, Lisa Jackson, VP of UX and design for CNH, told AgTechNavigator at the 2026 World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in San Francisco.
Jackson has worked for the ag machinery supplier for over three years, helping the OEM create user experiences for the technology inside vehicle cabins, mobile apps, and more. A big part of developing user experience that click with farmers is hearing from growers firsthand, Jackson noted.
“We go out with prototypes onto farms, with dealers, and we let people see the software we’re hoping to commercialise soon and get that real-time feedback. Farmers are opinionated. We get strong, strong viewpoints about what’s working — what’s not working — and we hope to get all the kinks out before our development team gets hold of it,” she elaborated.
Creating user experiences for farmers requires flexibility and an understanding that what one grower needs is different that the other, Jackson explained. “I remember first working on a project for archetypes, ... and someone told me, ‘If you know one farmer, you know one farmer,’” she noted.
While still a buzzword across industries, AI can match user experiences to specific farmers and the various challenges that they face on the farm, Jackson said.
“This is where AI is powerful. It’s not just doing one particular case in point. It’s able to handle exception cases, which is what farmers face every day, with weather, with variants of anything in their context that’s changing rapidly,” she elaborated.
First steps for a fully automated future: Start with small tasks
At the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit, Jackson spoke about the future of automation during a panel with representatives from Kubota, AgZen, and Tavant.
Farmers are already seeing tangible benefits from agtech and AI, including CNH’s combine automation, which uses 16 sensors and a multi-spectral camera to optimize performance and the quantity and quality of harvested grains.
“Combine automation — where we improve productivity by 20% — that is real. ... When you have sensors working with implements, we truly make things more productive,” Jackson said.
When it comes to building the future of automation, OEMs and software providers must first automate the smaller tasks, including bringing all the data from a farm into a single database and interface, Jackson said.
The process of creating a single user experience can be challenging, especially as CNH acquires smaller agtech companies and brings their capabilities into the OEM’s offerings, she explained. CNH acquired machine vision company Augmenta in 2023 and farm management information system provid AgDNA in 2021.
“We acquire small companies that are bringing tech into our large iron companies, and we have to slowly start to integrate all of our own technologies within our own house. ... If we don’t clean up what we have to offer, it’s too bumpy for a farmer to use,” Jackson elaborated.
Integrating various technologies together is a wider agtech challenge, since different providers can have different systems, Jackson pointed out. This is why industrywide collaboration is so crucial to creating digital farming and automation solutions, she said.
“The systems that we all use are so wildly different, and some of the technologies we use to communicate to and from don’t work well. And so again, when you think about agentic AI, it’s going to get easier. It’s going to get easier for us to partner with seed manufacturers, for example, so that farmers can use one interface but get all of the data,” she added.
