That’s what you can expect once you discover artificial intelligence. One night to play with it. One night to dream about the ways it might change your operation. And one night — the hardest one — when you realize it can replace you.
It’s no exaggeration to say AI is a game-changer in ranching. While some producers are just starting to hear the buzz, the most progressive operations are already putting AI to work — not just in theory, but in daily decision-making. Grazing plans, pasture rotations, marketing strategies, and enterprise analysis are now being handled in part — or entirely — by AI. And here’s the kicker: it doesn’t drink coffee, doesn’t need breaks, and doesn’t get offended when you say you might sell the whole cow herd. It just runs the numbers and tells the truth.
Take grazing planning. With AI pulling data from satellite imagery, LiDAR scans, and real-time weather feeds, it’s now possible to build a dynamic, adaptive grazing plan that adjusts as conditions change. Virtual fencing integrated with GPS collars and machine learning makes rotational grazing nearly effortless. No more stringing poly wire in the dark. No more second-guessing whether a pasture’s recovered. The system learns, adjusts, and acts — all in service of optimal animal nutrition and pasture health.
AI doesn’t stop there. It calculates economic profit in seconds, factoring in opportunity costs and capital allocation without emotion. It doesn’t care how long you’ve fed hay in the winter or whether that group of open heifers is your “best genetics.” It sees sunk costs and inefficiencies with ruthless clarity. It won’t lie to protect your ego.
Even sell/buy marketing has evolved. AI tools now monitor live market data, adjusting for freight, shrink, weight spreads, and regional differences. You might still be comparing to last year’s calf prices, but AI is looking at real-time cost-of-gain and suggesting you sell fat and buy thin — perhaps even from a different state. It feels like magic, but it’s just math — and it never gets tired.
But here’s the twist.
This article wasn’t written by Shanon Sims.
It was written by AI.
Surprised? Maybe. Upset? You shouldn’t be.
Because, the idea? That was Shanon’s.
And that’s the point.
AI can analyze. It can write. It can even imitate tone and style.
But, it can’t have the idea.
And that’s the million-dollar question:
What parts of your business can’t be replaced by AI?
Visioning is one. AI can analyze patterns, but it can’t articulate your “why.” It doesn’t know what kind of life you want for your kids, or what legacy you hope to leave behind. AI won’t gather your family around the kitchen table and ask, “What does a good life look like 10 years from now?” Succession is another. AI doesn’t understand trust, conflict, values, or dreams. It can’t tell you whether your daughter is ready to run the ranch — or if she even wants to.
So here’s your challenge: Spend more time in the parts of your business that AI can’t do. Strategy. Vision. Leadership. Communication. If you double down on these roles — the irreplaceable ones — you move from working in the business to working on it. That’s the real test of a profitable ranch.
The danger isn’t that AI will take your job. The danger is that you’ll spend so much time on the things AI does best — the day-to-day, the spreadsheets, the grazing maps — that you neglect the things it can’t ever do. Don’t mistake efficiency for leadership. Don’t let the tools drive the vision.
AI is here. It’s powerful. But it doesn’t have a dream for your family, and it doesn’t have a plan for your future.
That’s your job.
And if you’re clear on that, then congratulations — You’re Ranching For Profit.
Super article. Helpful.
The risks with AI are higher than our grey matter and the hype would have us believe. For one, when presented with information gaps an AI will fill that gap with stuff it makes up. In AI circles this is known as “hallucinations” – and that can have devastating consequences. Even in the presence of original source material AI will hallucinate. Here is an example from my life.
While writing my thesis I had to read thousands of pages of research. To help manage citations and notes I put colour coded sticky notes beside the block of text. To speed up getting that into my thesis I figured I would ask ChatGPT to convert a photo of the page into a text file, and highlight the text beside sticky notes. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is well established tech, 20+ years old.
ChatGPT would routinely hallucinate the OCR contents of these files. And I mean fully and completely make stuff up, even when it had all the information at hand. After 2 weeks of training agents and trying to get what a Adobe Acrobat has been able to do for 2 decades I gave up. There was no reliability, no consistency, and no way to trust the output.
Any LLM (large language model – the foundation of current AI) is, at the end of the day, a billion talking parrots trying to spit out something consistent. It lacks the ability to do basic things like count the number of ‘R’s’ in strawberry. Use with extreme caution.
We are at a unique stage in the roll out of AI where most of us have an organic knowledge base and are using AI as an assistant – for everything. The generations in school now are using AI without a genuine knowledge base and will be consumed by “New Speak”. These kids are going to be led down whatever path AI takes them and they will never be able to put it in check.
We are at the beginning of cycle that is going to transform society permanently. My advise is to start learning and applying it or you will be left behind.
Thank for tackling this subject Shannon, this is a fun and enlightening read. The AI video at the end, the surprise twist in the middle… brilliant. 🙂 I’m going to thro in some mispelled words and 90s text emojis just so everyone knows it’s not AI. ;))
I like the concept of three sleepless nights / like three stages of adopting this idea. I wonder if a pitfall here is just seeing this as another tool to avoid managing people. Maybe a healthy three stage approach would be: define what this is and what it isn’t , explore ways it can create a mote around existing or future team members by empowering them, and then how can we avoid mis using or falling prey to the chaos created by this new technology.
Thanks for the encouragement, Monte! I think you are right that AI makes it very tempting for leaders to create checklists and work orders for their people rather than to truly lead or manage their people. Maybe someday AI will be so complex that it can incorporate individual needs, experience, motivations into the codes, but I’m skeptical that ANYTHING will ever be able to replace human perception or compassion.
You’ve made me realize that this work is not complete without a good Venn diagram…