At CES 2023, John Deere CEO John May made a case for seeing agriculture—and Deere itself—as technology-driven, not just as green-and-yellow tractors. The presentation connected tools such as GPS, computer vision, robotics and cloud data to farm challenges including labor shortages, unpredictable weather and rising input costs. It was Deere’s effort to influence public perception, not evidence that consumers’ views actually changed: the account did not include a survey or other measurement of attitudes.
What Deere wanted consumers to see
John May delivered the opening-session keynote at CES in Las Vegas, according to Successful Farming’s January 9, 2023 report. It was Deere’s fifth consecutive year exhibiting at CES and, the report said, the first time an agricultural technology company presented on the main stage.
May’s message was that Deere is more than a manufacturer of familiar tractors. “Not only is it a manufacturing company, but Deere is also quickly becoming one of the world’s leading robotics and AI companies,” he said. He also pointed to the company’s long history of innovation. The keynote connected that technology story to farmers’ role in producing food, fuel and fiber.
That framing was Deere’s argument for why consumers should care about agriculture. May posed the question of why people should care about farmers when they represent less than 2% of the U.S. population, then urged listeners to think about a farmer at their next meal. The statistic and appeal appeared in his presentation as reported by Successful Farming; they do not indicate that audience members had been surveyed.
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The farm problems behind the technology pitch
Deere’s presentation linked technology to practical pressures on farms: variable weather, labor shortages, rising input costs and declining farmland. The company’s Leap Ambitions, announced in February 2022, were described as goals tied to customer economic value, productivity and environmental sustainability.
Deanna Kovar, a Deere vice president, framed the purpose as helping customers “grow more with less through precision and data.” That is the company’s rationale for precision agriculture, rather than independent proof that a specific product delivers a particular economic or environmental outcome.
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How Deere described the shift from GPS to data and automation
Kovar traced Deere’s technology progression from GPS investment beginning in 1997, to integration into tractors in the early 2000s, and then to moving farm data into cloud systems during the 2010s. Deere’s Operations Center was presented as an opt-in cloud platform where farmers can review field and job information, share data with advisers, use applications and make decisions across a field or season.
May cited more than 500,000 connected machines operating across more than one-third of Earth’s land surface. These were figures he gave in the 2023 keynote, not current independently verified totals. Kovar said farmers in more than 100 countries use Deere GPS technologies, also as a presentation claim.
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The keynote also featured an autonomous tractor, machine learning for crop and grain applications, and cloud-connected equipment. These examples show the range of capabilities Deere highlighted; the account does not establish that every feature was generally available or deployed on every farm.
Two examples of precision application
Deere used ExactShot and See & Spray Ultimate to illustrate how sensing and automation could target farm inputs more precisely. They address different jobs, so the figures below are not a basis for ranking one as more effective than the other.
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| System | Task and technology | Claim or reported experience |
|---|---|---|
| ExactShot | Detects seed placement and applies starter fertilizer at that location. | Deere chief technology officer Jahmy Hindman said it could reduce starter fertilizer use by more than 60% while maintaining planting speed. |
| See & Spray Ultimate | Uses cameras and computer vision to detect weeds and target herbicide application. | Deere’s presentation described a potential herbicide reduction of up to two-thirds. Arkansas farmer Travis Senter Jr. said he had seen cost savings of 50% to 70% on his farm. |
Both percentages are claims reported from the 2023 presentation, not independent comparative test results. Senter’s savings range is his account of his own operation, not a guarantee for other farms. Successful Farming described his operation as using 34 machines and employing 20 full-time workers.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the presentation does—and does not—establish
The CES keynote deliberately portrayed Deere and modern farming through robotics, AI, computer vision, GPS and data. It explained how the company says those tools relate to farm constraints and gave examples of targeted input use.
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But a corporate presentation and a farmer anecdote are not a consumer-perception study. Successful Farming’s report does not measure whether the keynote changed public attitudes, independently validate the claimed reductions, compare Deere’s products with competitors, or establish causal environmental benefits. The evidence supports describing Deere’s messaging and the claims made there—not concluding that its perception campaign succeeded.
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