New Zealand-based agritech firm Farm Focus has cut its customer service escalations by nearly 80 per cent after rolling out an AI agent across its platform, significantly improving its customer experience.
It comes as farmers are increasingly leaning into digital labour to help manage their businesses, with the rise of AI agents. Farm Focus’ work marks one of the most significant agentic AI deployments in the agricultural sector.
Farm Focus recently turned to Salesforce to support a business-wide digital transformation, including the rollout of ‘Daisy’ – an AI agent powered by Agentforce that offers round-the-clock support. Altogether, the new agent supports more than 10,000 customers with their farm management needs and has massively improved customers’ experience with the brand.
Speaking to B&T at Salesforce’s Agentforce event in Sydney, Rooney said the shift has been less about flashy change, and more about a “frictionless experience.”
“I don’t think visually customers would notice,” he said. “But from an experience perspective, they absolutely would. Everything from the way we go to market with campaigns to product interactions is a lot smoother and more integrated. Before, it was very clunky.”
By consolidating more than 40 tools into a unified Salesforce platform, Farm Focus has simplified its tech stack and operations—saving an estimated NZ$1.1 million (AU$930,000) in the process.
“That consolidation has allowed us to invest in growth, particularly in Australia,” Rooney said. “Previously, the way we were structured meant scaling required more people. Now, we don’t actually need to hire additional people to run marketing and sales. We can scale with what we’ve got.”
Rooney said that Daisy’s early results show a 78–79 per cent reduction in escalations to human support staff.
“That was our key metric,” Rooney explained. “Now, not escalating doesn’t necessarily mean it’s solved – some customers will click out as soon as they realise it’s AI. But we’ve seen roughly 70 per cent of those cases fully resolved by AI.”
For Rooney, perfection isn’t the goal.
“Humans aren’t perfect, AI isn’t going to be either,” he said. “It’s about continuous refinement.”
According to Rooney, Daisy is “freeing up Farm Focus’ human teams to focus on higher-value interactions,” while also empowering farmers with faster answers.
AI isn’t the enemy
While AI adoption in agriculture has lagged behind other industries, Rooney believes the sector is at a tipping point.
He highlighted that up to 60 per cent of Farm Focus’ New Zealand customer base is expected to retire from full-time farming in the next 15 years.
In Australia, farmers older than 65 account for around 20 per cent of the workforce. For a demographic often stereotyped as resistant to change, Rooney says the key is positioning AI as assistance – not replacement.
“I always talk about it as assisted decision-making,” he said. “You’re in control of how you engage with the AI. You’re in control of what you ask it, what information you use and what information you give it.”
Rather than overwhelming farmers with complex dashboards, Farm Focus is building tools that translate dense financial reports into plain-language insights.
“They don’t want to sit down and read black-and-white financial reports that are three pages long and just numbers,” Rooney said. “What we’re building is the ability for a farmer to be on the same level as their advisor – their accountant, their consultant, their bank.”
One product pulls data from 20 existing reports and generates analysis, flagging anomalies and suggesting actions.
“If you’ve spent 120 per cent more on feed this year than last year, it might say: maybe monitor that, maybe something’s been coded incorrectly,” he explained. “That’s something an accountant might pick up much later – and it could cost the business more by then.”
Another feature allows farmers to query their entire farm’s financial data in natural language.
“They can ask any question they want about their financial data. We don’t even know what they’re going to ask yet,” Rooney said. “That’s the exciting part.”
Transparency is also “critical to maintaining trust”.
“I think if you’re upfront about it being AI, customers understand,” he said. “When companies don’t say it’s AI, that’s where you lose trust.”
More than just software
Founded in 1981 by three farmers responding to the introduction of GST in New Zealand, Farm Focus company has “continually evolved alongside the industry it serves”.
“We innovated ahead of something that inevitably changed the way business was done,” Rooney said. “Now, we’re asking: what’s the biggest disruptor for farmers next? And we need to be at the front of that – while supporting our customers to get there.”
So is Farm Focus a software company serving farmers – or a tech brand changing the future of farming?
Rooney believes “it’s a combination of both”.
“We’ve always been built for farmers,” he said. “But business and technology are becoming so complex that farmers are increasingly relying on accountants, consultants and banks. We need to bring that whole team together.”
As AI becomes embedded in everyday workflows, Rooney believes the next generation of farmers will expect nothing less.
“My generation uses AI 10 or 20 times a day,” he said. “We have to build a platform that allows for that future.”
