AI & Automation
As many have experienced, we are entering a new frontier where artificial intelligence is becoming part of everyday use. Most of us use generative AI such as Claude or ChatGPT, but this is just the starting point to the new tools being introduced and developed every day.
As a technology company, The Picas Group is excited about this next step and is eager to integrate tools into our software that create meaningful impact for our users.
AI has significant potential in the horticulture industry, including:
- Space planning
- Grading
- Business intelligence and data management
- Advancing automation (accounting, germination, purchasing)
The Picas Group is actively pursuing secure, responsible, and effective ways to leverage AI. A dedicated team is focused on researching and evaluating opportunities, ensuring we take a thoughtful approach rather than adopting trends prematurely or investing in solutions that lack long-term value or security.
The current initiatives TPG has begun exploring are:
- AI tools to automate processes such as accounting, germination, and grading
- Integrating Picas data with private AI platforms like Copilot
- Enhancing space planning capabilities
- Optimizing our codebase through AI-assisted development
This is an exciting opportunity—one that, through partnership, strategy, and thorough research, we are well prepared and ready to implement.
Our AI Roadmap
AI CoPilot in Business Intelligence
We are currently implementing AI into our BI solution, through Microsoft CoPilot and Fabric.
Drones for Crop Monitoring
We are investigating multiple forms of drone technology which can be implemented throughout your operation to more seamlessly feed information to Picas.
Optimizations in Picas
We are actively working on utilizing AI to advance our software with more speed and accuracy.
There's a lot going on in the AI landscape right now. With all the tools out there, like ChatGPT, CoPilot, Gemini, Perplexity, etc. the important thing to remember is that these tools are not private. Even if you pay for it, the data that you're entering is being used for training or could be presented to someone else. The things AI knows about you is a huge new threat vector.
So what do we do about it? How do we stay secure? Here are a few things The Picas Group does that you can implement at your organization:
- Create AI usage policies to ensure that your team knows the risks of entering company data into an open AI platform
- Ensure you have 2-factor authentication for every login
- Update hardware and software immediately
- Implement AI-powered firewall and email defenses
Additionally, practices like generalizing any data that you put in an AI platform are critical. Replace account numbers, names of customers, businesses, server names, etc. Anything that is private to you and your company.
It isn’t a matter of “when” anymore; for better or for worse, we have entered into a new era. Security is more important than ever before, and the privacy of your data continues to be our top priority.