Actual Intelligence
July 27, 2026
Written By Jon Ihler
My wife, Becky, and I recently celebrated our daughter’s graduation from high school. During the baccalaureate program, one of the teachers spoke about the future and artificial intelligence. Now, I’m not one to make strong predictions, but I’m going to bet that a high percentage of graduation speakers this year mentioned AI in their comments.
We find ourselves in an interesting moment in the AI discussion. We’re seeing significant expansion by the hyperscalers like Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook) and Amazon in enterprise data center development across the country, including in Missouri, where development is mostly around the Kansas City and St. Louis areas. Two recent major projects have been announced in the Montgomery City, Mo., area with Google building a $15 billion facility and Amazon Web Services building its own $35 billion campus. I assume similar projects are popping up in the surrounding states where MFA Oil does business.
In the business world, we’ve been told that AI will make companies faster and cheaper to run. But as one AI executive admitted, “in a lot of cases, the cost of AI computing can actually be greater than the cost of human employees.” In one prominent example, Uber exhausted its annual AI budget in just four months and responded by putting monthly spending caps on its employees’ AI usage. Recently, Meta and Microsoft have begun implementing guardrails for employee AI use as well. Researchers have suggested that while AI is cost-effective in a small share of jobs, in most cases, people may remain the better investment.
I believe that AI and quantum computing may have a place in agriculture and the energy supply chain. AI-powered tools can help with forecasting, smarter routing and more efficient operations. But the same concerns that tech companies are grappling with regarding high computing costs, expensive infrastructure and uncertain return on investment will go a long way in determining how widely adopted these tools become with farmers and businesses in the energy industry.
The good news is that the strongest results come from using AI to support people, not replace them. That aligns naturally with the cooperative model, where long-term value and member service come first.
MFA Oil is moving 97 years of data into a database so we can use large language models like Copilot for analysis. As we continue to study AI capabilities, our employees will use these tools to analyze operations and ensure we’re optimizing our people, time and assets for greater efficiency. For example, AI could predict when one of our farmer-members will need fuel by looking at seasonality, weather patterns, and farm or equipment size. Or it could forecast how much breakfast food needs to be prepared at a Break Time store based on sales trends.
For MFA Oil, the path forward is steady and grounded: Explore AI where it strengthens our workforce, improves service and enhances reliability. We won’t be adopting it because it’s trendy. It must add real value. One thing is clear: The future of AI, especially in industries as practical and essential as farming, energy or retail, is still being written. Technology will continue to evolve and new tools will emerge. But success will still depend on people making good decisions and serving others well. That’s why I’m reminding my daughter that AI also stands for “actual intelligence.”