On 22 September 2026, NIBIO hosted a workshop with private forest owners, organised within Small4Good together with Norges Skogeierforbund (the Norwegian Forest Owners’ Federation). The aim was to involve forest owners early in the development of an agentic AI assistant designed to support forest management decisions.
The system under development uses a large language model to support decision-making in the forest. It brings together scientific knowledge, national forest data, management guidelines and other relevant information, so that small forest owners can make well-informed decisions about their properties.
Rather than presenting a finished tool, the workshop started from the other end. The key questions were which decisions forest owners actually find difficult, and where digital support could genuinely help. Participants were asked to bring concrete situations from their own forests. Questions such as “What should I do with an inherited property?”, “Which tree species should I plant in my forest?” and “How resilient is my forest to climate change?” were among those raised.
The decision situations collected during the workshop feed directly into the further development of the system, so that it is grounded in the real needs of forest owners. The session also gave participants a first look at a prototype, showing the potential of agentic AI systems to support forest management in practice.
The participants have agreed to return for a second round to evaluate a working version of the assistant, continuing the co-creation process with the people the tool is meant to serve.