Naming his company after the Himalayan wild yak (Bos mutus) was a considered choice on the part of founder Tim Li. Strong and resilient, these animals embody the qualities Mutus Tech hopes to achieve for its customers through its precision agriculture products.

Mutus Tech’s smart, AI-driven solutions include cutting-edge methods for crop monitoring, pest control, sustainable fertiliser management and carbon prediction. Its PestGPT app, for example, incorporates generative AI technology to help farmers and agribusinesses detect and quantify pests, place this information within relevant contexts and thresholds, and provide useful advice on how to manage the threat.

Tim says: “Mutus Tech came about as a spin-off from our existing data analytics company, Ant Data Limited. One of our clients, a farm manager, asked whether he could use AI to optimise fertiliser use on his farm – and that was the challenge we set ourselves.”

The challenge

“Agriculture can generate a lot of data,” says Qing Xue, Mutus Tech’s product manager. “But what our customers need are clear, actionable insights to help them solve problems relating to yield, cost-effectiveness and sustainability. For example, according to one study, improper use of fertiliser can lead to 30% wastage – so our AI-driven tools can have a big impact.”

Qing attended the BridgeAI showcase events in London and Manchester to get a better understanding of the support available through Innovate UK for SMEs keen to adopt AI technology into their products. As a result, the company applied to join the BridgeAI programme and enrolled onto The Alan Turing Institute’s Independent Scientific Advisor programme,where they were paired with Dr Po Yang, Senior Lecturer in Large-scale Data Fusion at the University of Sheffield.

Leveraging his connections in academia, Po has given Mutus Tech access to the latest research and technical guidance to help refine its tools – in particular by using emerging technology such as large language models to reduce the time, cost and computing power needed to train the company’s AI algorithms. In addition, with Po’s collaboration, Mutus Tech conducted a structured evaluation of its pest management system, Pezego. The survey featured 10 carefully crafted pest scenarios, each accompanied by two sets of recommendations: one derived from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board Encyclopaedia and the other generated by Pezego’s AI. Respondents were asked to evaluate the quality of the recommendations across criteria including clarity, relevance and actionable value.

This approach enabled the team to identify areas where Pezego outperformed existing resources, such as providing more context-specific advice tailored to real-world conditions. It also highlighted areas for improvement – for example, refining how the AI interprets ambiguous pest descriptions. Insights from the survey led to algorithm updates that improved diagnostic accuracy by 15% and reduced processing time by 20%, making the tool more reliable and efficient for farmers. These advancements have accelerated Pezego’s journey to market and solidified its value as a trusted resource in sustainable agriculture.

Next steps: refinement and investment

With guidance from experts such as Po, Mutus Tech will keep working to integrate the latest AI technologies into its products to make sure they are as efficient, accurate and cost-effective as possible. The team will also be gathering continued feedback as it refines its tools for end users ahead of an official launch to market, as well as seeking further investment and funding opportunities.

We’re very appreciative of the guidance Po has given us, and also the wider BridgeAI opportunities such as being able to showcase our products at major events and having access to leading AI and machine learning researchers in the UK. Our ambition now is to show farmers and agronomists that our products can have strong value and impact in the real world.

– Qing Xue, Product Manager, Mutus Tech

Po adds: “Mutus Tech’s advanced, AI-driven agricultural data science solutions address some of the key challenges in modern farming, from pests and disease to climate change and sustainability. Witnessing the company’s impressive growth over the past few months has been both inspiring and rewarding for my ISA journey.”