Vincent Guyonnet, DVM, PhD – Managing Director of FFI Consulting Ltd, Associate Research at Universite de Montreal, and WVEPAH Global Coordinator for Poultry Health and Production.
This abstract is part of Dr Guyonnet’s presentation at incubaFORUM ASIA 2026 in Indonesia.
incubaFORUM ASIA 2026, the most important poultry breeding and hatchery industry gathering in Asia, took place 28-30 April 2026 at Trembesi Hotel – BSD, Tangerang in Indonesia.
The animal production sector faces many challenges to provide safe foods to our growing population. By 2050, we must be able to feed 9.5 billion people in a sustainable manner to safeguard opportunities for future generations.
With the rising level of income in many countries around the world, the demand for meat and eggs is expected to increase by 73%, with most customers choosing poultry products as their preferred option.
But our natural resources are limited, and production must increase with only 5% more arable land available. It is therefore essential for the poultry sector to be more efficient.
We are also confronted to other issues such as increased cost of production, disease outbreaks and concerns about animal welfare, the impact of production on the environment, competition from other animal production sectors, and the need to appeal to younger consumers and embrace changes.
As a sector, we are certainly reluctant to changes. We are a sector still very labor intensive with limited automation, at least on farms.
And we are also a sector extremely rich in data – every day, we diligently record a wide range of numbers from our farms, but the data is not used to its full potential.
The main reason – most of our data is still recorded manually! This problem is not unique to the poultry sector – it is estimated that in most industry sectors only 10% of the data generated is in a digital format while 90% is not, meaning that the data is not easily accessible for analysis and to provide insights.
The digitalization of the poultry sector is absolutely needed for its sustainable growth. And we are fortunate to have many options to enter this new Poultry 4.0 world!
We can now use connected devices to measure various parameters, some related to the environment in which we raise the birds, and others more directly linked to the performance of our flocks.
The connected devices on our farms allow a more accurate monitoring of the situation:
- No more missing data;
- No more numbers written on a small piece of paper and lost;
- No more numbers that do not make real sense.
Among these sensors, the accurate monitoring of feed consumption with bin scales or level sensors, the patterns of water consumption, and bird weights with automated scales are essential to manage the growth and uniformity of our flocks.
The first benefit of digitalization is indeed to have access to data 24/7 and to be able to see results in a format easy to read by producers and farm managers.
But the true value of digitalization comes when the analytical power of artificial intelligence (AI) is applied to all the data we are collecting on our farms and in our plants.
Artificial Intelligence can be defined as the science attempting to mimic the performance of the brain of child: able to learn from experiences and transfer the knowledge acquired in one field into another field.
- Using machine learning models, we can use the vast amount of data to define algorithms helping us better manage our flocks.
- We can train models to help us detect situations outside of the ordinary, at a very early stage, so that we can react, adjust, and prevent bigger problems. Here, the digitalization and AI contribute to better health and welfare of our birds.
- We can also train models to make predictions about bird weight, up to 14 days in advance or predict a drop in egg production within a 5-day window.
- We can also predict the distribution of egg sizes in a barn, thus facilitating the work at the hatchery and the planning of placement in the incubators.
Artificial vision is now used in many applications and in many sectors. Although vision is a natural thing for us, creating machines able to recognize, understand and analyze fast moving objects has been a long process.
Artificial vision is currently used to detect internal and external defects of eggs and to class them under various categories. We can also use vision to grade eggs by weight using only artificial vision.
Artificial vision will play a much greater role in the future, especially to monitor the health and welfare of birds.
Digitalization and AI are also tools empowering farm operators with knowledge.
- A specifically trained Poultry Chat bot can provide accurate and relevant information on a wide range of topics related to poultry management, nutrition and health.
- Confronted to a challenging situation, this Chatbot, within seconds, assist veterinarians, farm managers and nutritionists to validate the best course of action to take.
The road towards digitalization is complex with many options to consider and this process can be overwhelming for many poultry producers. However, a planned and concerted approach will convert this digital transformation into a seamless journey.
The value of data will be maximized with the development of various predictive algorithms and the continuous refinement of these models. This process will optimize the benefits that poultry farmers, hatcheries, and processors will gain from their digital transformation.
Whenever the poultry sector uses data to make decisions on the best course of actions, we can train AI models to assist us, covering the entire poultry value chain from breeder farms to consumers. The poultry sector will then gain in efficiencies, improve the health and welfare of birds and reduce the use of our limited natural resources.
In essence, the digitalization combined with the use of AI will contribute to the sustainable growth of the poultry sector.
Find the PDF of this abstract here.
Find the presentation of Dr Vincent Guyonnet at incubaFORUM ASIA 2026 here.