14 NEBRASKA CATTLEMAN January 2026 “A drawback of utilizing AI is that we don’t necessarily want to give up skills that we have,” Dennis says. “AI performs best when there is human oversight and feedback. It is impossible FROM FAMILY RANCHES TO YOUR TABLE ITALIAN HERITAGE BREED NO ADDED HORMONES OR ANTIBIOTICS PIEDMONTESE.COM CERTIFIEDPIEDMONTESE to provide that if you don’t already have a solid base in what you want AI to help you accomplish. “I think we just need to be aware of what we’re replacing and make sure that we’re complementing it and not letting it supplant skills and information that we may need.” As with everything in life, adapting to change can be challenging, and AI can present itself at the most basic level as change. “We’re on an early adopter curve right now in terms of artificial intelligence,” Scales says. “I think it’s going to take quite a while for ranching to catch up more systemically. But the fact of the matter is, the nature of how we work will never go back. We are looking at the age of the internet, the industrial revolution. Artificial intelligence is going to have that same sort of impact just in our overall behaviors and our interactions with data and, frankly, with workflows.” Another con for many people is the upfront investment involved, which can be cost-prohibitive to many producers. Next month, we will look into cost-share programs available to producers who want to utilize AI in their operations. In future articles, we will take a deeper dive into different AI programs and how they can be used on your operation. If you use precision livestock monitoring, forage monitoring via AI or other AI applications in your operation’s day-to-day life and would be willing to share your experience, reach out to me at tressamlawrence307@gmail.com. ~NC~ “I think we just need to be aware of what we’re replacing and make sure that we’re complementing it and not letting it supplant skills and information that we may need.” — Elliott Dennis, Ph.D. THE OTHER AI CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13
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