By Eric Anderson,
Polk Bros. Chair in Retailing
Professor of Marketing
Kellogg School of Management
What does AI have to do with agriculture?
A whole lot, as reflected in a recent partnership between two Illinois-based institutions: John Deere and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. The initiative highlights the educational, technological and human capital resources of the Midwest and how, together, they create multifaceted value.
Kellogg and Deere have long been connected through decades of Deere recruiting Kellogg MBA students. This new initiative developed through Kellogg’s MBAi program, a joint-degree program offered with Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering.
As part of the AI-focused MBAi program’s capstone project, students collaborated with John Deere to leverage AI for improving crop yields and diminishing waste. The collaboration produced an award-winning product innovation that Deere incorporated into its portfolio. Additionally, multiple Kellogg students have joined the global manufacturing company as full-time employees post-graduation.
The Kellogg MBAi Program and Capstone
The MBAi program prepares technically literate business leaders for the age of AI, equipping them to collaborate effectively with both the C-suite and technical teams like engineers and data scientists. Students benefit from a rigorous curriculum anchored by a Computational Thinking course and MBAi-exclusive classes such as Applied AI for Business and Tech Product Management, along with industry connections for potential summer internships.
As part of the program, MBAi students participate in a quarter-long capstone project, working with approximately 20 partner businesses on targeted applications of AI. The capstone culminates in an end-of-term showcase competition before a panel of judges that includes MBAi faculty, project sponsors and industry representatives.
Student teams partner closely with students from Northwestern’s Master of Science in AI program, combining business and AI expertise — modeled after the cross-functional product teams they will encounter in their careers.
The capstone experience enables students to explore career paths and discover new opportunities through hands-on projects independent of any full-time job or internship.
Lincoln Holt ’23 MBAi found the capstone project highly valuable. “It bridged the gap between classroom theory and real-world messiness, by throwing us into ambiguous business challenges alongside people actively working on them,” says Holt. “Navigating incomplete data, competing priorities and stakeholder dynamics, we had to distill complex technical work into actionable recommendations for decision-makers — all essential skills in my career. It’s one thing to build a model; it’s another to make leaders confident enough to act on it.”
The MBAi Capstone: Harnessing AI at John Deere
John Deere has been the perfect corporate partner for the MBAi capstone project because of how it is integrating AI into its software as it moves away from standalone products and toward subscription-based services. The company, long known for selling heavy-duty agricultural equipment like tractors and threshers, is undergoing a major transformation as part of its broader Smart Industrial Strategy.
Deere is one of the few companies in the world that invests in the technology to locate GPS signals down to the inch, which helps customers identify where their machines are and control them more precisely for optimal results. As one of the world’s largest robotics companies, Deere is driving innovation at the intersection of AI, advanced technologies and agriculture.
The capstone partnership has also explored other industry-relevant challenges to deepen students’ practical experience. One notable example is the Sugar Harvesting Automation project, which implemented AI to optimize harvests and maximize revenue from sugarcane crops for Deere customers. Applying technical principles learned in class, the team used data from tractor-mounted sensors to generate an estimated 5% increase in recoverable sugar per acre—scalable across the thousands of acres many farmers own.
Beyond Deere’s technology focus, the company’s culture of collaborative innovation has made the capstone project highly valuable for students. This culture has fostered innovation and creativity among Kellogg students, enabling ideas to progress rapidly within a 10-week timeframe. Deere has gone out of its way to help students become innovators, which was remarkable to see.
A Mutually Beneficial Heartland Partnership
The Kellogg-Deere partnership has delivered significant value to everyone involved. The Deere leader overseeing the capstone sponsorship extended an open invitation for Kellogg students to apply for positions in any area of innovation within the company.
Multiple Kellogg MBAi students have accepted offers at John Deere as a result of the corporate partnership and capstone project. After joining the company as an AI product manager, Holt now leads marketing initiatives including scaling the company’s SmartClean product — inspired by his capstone project. “Deere is an incredible company. Agriculture is one of the most important industries in the world, and Deere is at the forefront of transforming it,” says Holt. “What stood out was seeing how they combine hardware innovation with AI – computer vision systems on equipment that capture real-time data about soil, crops and weather conditions. — and then using AI to translate that into actionable insights for farmers. There’s something truly special about knowing that my work helps farmers feed the world.”
Joey Hernandez ’22 MBAi also joined Deere as a product manager focused on AI-based solutions. “The richness of Deere’s data and the scale of its production is unmatched,” explains Hernandez. “AI is one of the most powerful tools we have to help surface the insights that matter. Every machine operating in a field has the capability to push high-density data to our servers, describing anything from machine settings to crop yield. We continue to invest in the foundational technologies that make customer operations more profitable.”
While Deere has benefited from Kellogg hires like Holt and Hernandez, the MBAi partnership has offered the school far more than project sponsorship and job placements. It has also led to the addition of a Deere representative to the MBAi board, who has become an influential member of the leadership team.
Partnerships like the one between Kellogg and John Deere strengthen both institutions’ reputations and bolster the broader credibility of the Midwest as a fast-growing innovation hub. It’s just one of many ways the Heartland is leading in cutting-edge education, technology, and talent.