During a recent trip to Agritechnica, the world’s leading trade show for farm equipment, John Fulton noticed a common theme. 

“Everyone seemed to have something in their booth that centered around automation,” says the professor at Ohio State Univ.’s Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering. “If you didn’t have a robot in your booth, you weren’t keeping up with the Joneses.”

This affirmed Fulton’s belief that the automation trend is coming quicker than many think. And so is AI, because the two go hand in hand, Fulton says. “There was hardly anything about AI because it’s already embedded in the technology being used or offered through companies today.”  

During his presentation at the 2026 National No-Tillage Conference in St. Louis, Fulton discussed how no-tillers can position themselves to adopt some of these breakthroughs coming down the pike. 

Get Your Data Ready

First, Fulton says, no-tillers need a plan to collect, manage and store data so it can be used to make improvements on the farm with precision technology and AI. He recommends starting simple and working up to something more complex if you’re a data novice. 

“Add one data layer at a time, whether it’s pulling it off your monitor at night or looking at your iPad,” Fulton advises. “Make sure your yield monitor is calibrated because yield data ultimately is one of those layers that every precision ag provider requires to provide service to you.”