Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer confined to labs and tech hubs. Today, it is transforming agriculture – helping farmers optimise crop planning, spot pests early on and forecast yields. Take Plantix, an AI-driven platform designed to strengthen on-field decision making by offering real-time, expert advisory at scale. Offered as a free app, it helps farmers access reliable agricultural knowledge easily and apply it directly on their fields. Plantix enables farmers to take timely, informed decisions that improve crop health, productivity, and income.
“At its core, Plantix functions as a digital crop doctor allowing farmers to diagnose diseases, pests, and nutrient deficiencies simply by clicking a photo,” said Simone Strey, its CEO. The app can currently identify nearly 800 crop-disease pairs across more than 60 different crop types. “This advanced AI system can diagnose these issues with 90% plus accuracy, delivering results in seconds and reducing the dependency on manual diagnosis or guesswork,” she told FE.
Stage-wise local advise a farmers’ fingertips
Once the issue is identified, the app provides precise, stage-wise and location-aware recommendations including treatment guidance, district-level disease alerts, weather insights, and cultivation tips that support farmers throughout the crop cycle. The platform offers a suite of tools designed to optimise every stage of farming. For instance, the Fertiliser Calculator helps farmers determine the exact nutrient demands for their specific plot size, ensuring cost-efficient and balanced soil health. Localised Agri Weather Forecasts guides them on the best time for critical activities like sowing, spraying, or harvesting. Furthermore, the Plantix Community serves as a digital social network where farmers can ask crop-related questions and receive answers from over 500 experts and peers. The app also includes an extensive Crop Library on over 800 crop issues, offering both chemical and organic treatment options to help them manage their fields sustainably.
“Today, the platform serves a massive community of over eight million active farmers in India annually,” said Priyadarshi Sharma, senior sales director – International Business, Plantix. “We see a high density of active users across Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Gujarat, West Bengal, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh & Telangana alongside a growing presence in several other states.” The app offers diagnostic and cultivation support for many of the region’s most important crops, including rice, cotton, maize, pepper, tomato, eggplant, okra, and cucumber. “Nearly 9 in 10 farmers report an improvement in their way of farming and higher crop production, while 8 in 10 farmers say the amount of crops that die has decreased because of the app,” he added.
Likewise, FarmPrecise has shown measurable benefits for farmers across different states. On average, yields of crops such as soybean, cotton, and paddy have increased by more than 22.5%, while input costs have come down by approximately 20%. Irrigation water use has reduced by 25%, and losses from weather-related events have dropped by 25% as well. “These figures highlight how digital advisories can deliver both economic and environmental gains for smallholder farmers,” said Prakash Keskar, executive director at Watershed Organisation Trust(WOTR).
A leading non-profit, WOTR offers the AI-driven FarmPrecise app, giving pro bono support to farmers with hyper-local, AI-driven advisories for better crop management, including weather forecasts, nutrient planning, pest control, and market prices, helping reduce costs and increase resilience. “With over one lakh downloads, the app is currently available in four states: Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, and Odisha in the local language. We are planning to scale it up soon in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and Jharkhand,” Keskar said.
“Farmers using the app typically see higher yields and lower input costs, which translates into increased profitability,” said Ajay Shelke, deputy general manager, IT, WOTR. At the same time, the platform delivers co-benefits such as improved soil health, efficient water use, and reduced crop losses from weather shocks – advantages that strengthen both livelihoods and sustainability. “Another differentiator is the breadth of services available through a single, easy-to-use interface. From crop and pest management to livestock advisories and market intelligence, FarmPrecise offers a suite of more than a dozen farm-related services, all accessible via an AI-assisted chatbot that simplifies decision-making for even first-time users,” he informed.
More than just a farming app
While many see AgriSaarathi as a farming app, it is actually a specialised deployment of Digitide’s proprietary agentic AI framework, stressed Gurmeet Chahal, the CEO & ED. Built on Google Cloud’s advanced architecture, AgriSaarathi integrates multiple autonomous AI agents that deliver high-precision, contextual insights.
Farmers interact naturally through voice or text in their local dialect. The system doesn’t just provide static answers; it functions as a learning loop. It ingests local soil data, seasonal patterns, and farmer inputs to provide hyper-personalised recommendations. “More importantly, it tracks the ‘life of the problem’ – monitoring a disease treatment’s progress and validating outcomes- mirroring the same rigorous AI governance we apply to our global enterprise clients,” Chahal said.
AgriSaarathi is currently in its pilot phase, deployed across key agricultural hubs in India as part of Digitide’s global rollout strategy. “By collaborating with farmer organisations and cooperatives, we are proving that our AI models can handle the immense diversity of local languages, crop patterns, and environmental variables,” he added.