AI- and robotics-driven reconfiguration of a traditional industry : Business model innovation in agriculture 4.0

Title data

Bouncken, Ricarda B. ; Cesinger, Beate:
AI- and robotics-driven reconfiguration of a traditional industry : Business model innovation in agriculture 4.0.
In: Technology in Society. Vol. 88 (2026) . - 103440.
ISSN 0160-791X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2026.103440

Project information

Abstract in another language

Agriculture 4.0 is introducing digital tools – especially AI and robotics – into farming. More importantly it is transforming one of the world's most traditional industries, a sector historically anchored in manual labor, tacit knowledge, family-values, product-centric exchange, and deeply sedimented social practices. AI, robotics, connected machinery, and data infrastructures challenge these foundations by shifting agricultural work from human observation, experiential judgment, and field-based execution toward algorithmic monitoring, automated recommendation, and increasingly autonomous operations. Drawing on business model theory, our conceptual study explains how Agriculture 4.0 moves farming from historically embedded, hardware-centered arrangements toward data-driven, service-based, and platform-orchestrated models of value creation, delivery, and capture. We develop an integrative framework and propositions that specify six central transformations: rise of data-driven business models, persistent business model experimentation, strategic realignment through platforms, recurring and outcome-based revenue logics, duality of platform-enabled scaling and platform dependency, and governance challenge of balancing openness with control. By theorizing Agriculture 4.0 as the business model transformation of a traditional industry, our study advances research on digital transformation, platform ecosystems, business model innovation, and sociotechnical disruption. Our framework shows that disruption in traditional sectors requires more than superior technology or economic promise. It gains force only when novel organizational arrangements become accepted as legitimate alternatives to established practices, identities, and sectoral logics.