Dr Ramzi Ben Ouaghrem of the Mohammed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence speaks with Tim Elliott about the new Institute for Agriculture and AI (IAAI), launched in partnership with the Gates Foundation. The IAAI focuses on deploying open-access AI models and digital advisory tools at scale to support over 43 million smallholder farmers, tackling data relevance issues and boosting food security, sustainability, and global development in the Global South. This initiative brings AI out of the laboratory and into the field.