EY is extending alliance with Microsoft to bring innovative digital solutions to the agribusiness industry

The initiative will combine EY's technology consulting experience and its agribusiness knowledge with Microsoft's digital suite of tools and the Microsoft Azure cloud platform to help companies innovate and transform their businesses. For example, EY and Microsoft will collaborate to develop solutions with a focus on data, analytics and artificial intelligence to support farmers and growers in increasing productivity, and help the industry digitize how crop data is aggregated, monitored and analyzed through e-commerce capabilities. This will help farmers increase efficiencies and competitive advantage using the data they collect on crop production, supply chain, machinery operation, and other business-critical data points. EY and Microsoft announced the initiative at Chicago Ideas Week, an annual festival in October that features more than 200 events spread across the city, during a session about data-driven farming and the role that technology will continue to play in increasing yields and field sustainability. EY and Microsoft are among the sponsors of the event.