RAIN — Week of August 31, 2026

Ask Amy

I think one of the biggest questions for nonprofits is about grants. If AI can search for grants, write grants, and vet submitted grants, how will that shape future funding? Will it be faster? Will funders be pickier because they can fund faster? Or will there be more distrust and competition?
Julie, Durango, Colorado

This is a subject that gives me anxiety in the age of AI. I can imagine a dystopian system with robots submitting grant applications to robots ranking them on the other end without a human in sight. And then I imagine the one poor holdout who doesn’t use AI. She submits a lovingly crafted, authentic proposal, but it's rejected because she didn’t use the exact words the AI model was looking for. She loses out, and we lose out because this amazing work didn’t get funded.

Will it be faster? Applications get faster; decisions mostly don’t because review timelines are set by fiscal calendars. The pressure builds when more submissions arrive without an increase in capacity to review and make decisions.

Will funders be pickier? Funders are likely to become pickier not because they want to but because they have to. If the applicant pool doubles and the money doesn't, the acceptance rate falls regardless of anyone's opinion about AI.

If AI helps to make every application read as competent, writing quality stops being a differentiator, and funders fall back on the things that still separate applicants: track record, relationships, whether the program officer has heard of you. Those criteria might hurt rural and brand-new organizations. So AI can close the writing gap and widen the network gap at the same time.

More distrust and competition? Yes, absolutely. Some funders will add disclosure questions and use AI detection software. Some will shorten applications, or move to letters of intent and human-to-human conversations, precisely because long polished prose no longer proves anything.

Julie, I encourage you to use AI when it can give you an advantage. Remember that humans ultimately make the decisions and drive the tools. Build your network and sail on!

Until next week, Amy

Every column starts with a reader question. Yours can be next: ruralai.org/rain

Stories of the Week

The Largest Data Centers Planned in Rural Counties

Daily Yonder mapped the nation's 18 largest data centers and found five of the nine biggest planned facilities sit in nonmetro counties, topped by the 9.7 GW Delta Gigasite in Millard, Utah. Planned sites average 126 MW of capacity, against 47 MW for those already operating.

In counties drawing these projects, 19% of residents live in poverty, 15% lack broadband, and 20% have no health insurance. The siting pattern favors places with the least capacity to negotiate, which is worth knowing before a developer shows up at your county board.

Orchard Robotics CEO: Growers 'shouldn't have to be data analysts'

Orchard Robotics CEO Charlie Wu told an ag robotics conference in Salinas that his tractor-mounted camera system counts fruit and flags disease across orchards and vineyards. Images process on an onboard NVIDIA Jetson because most farms cannot upload terabytes of raw imagery.

Yield predictions run 95%-plus accurate, driving hiring, bin and storage decisions, with labor and input savings Wu puts at three to 10x ROI in year one. Pricing is a per-acre annual subscription covering hardware upgrades, now running in apples, grapes, cherries, almonds and citrus.

John Deere launches AI assistant for farmers

John Deere launched JD, a generative AI assistant inside its Operations Center platform, demonstrated at the Farm Progress Show through Sept. 3. Farmers can ask how tillage fuel use compares with prior years or which sprayer operator covered the most acres per hour.

Access starts as a limited Early Access Program for select U.S. customers, expanding to web and mobile later this year and in-cab displays after that. Deere paired the launch with a 10-point Farmer Data Commitment on ownership and third-party sharing; read it before switching anything on.

Daybreak for Frontline Defenders: $1B to protect essential services

OpenAI committed $1 billion in subsidized access to its Daybreak cyber models, plus training and technical support, targeted for use over the next six months. Priority goes to water and wastewater systems, electric operators, state and local governments, community and regional banks, and nonprofits.

A new pilot with MS-ISAC will train state, local, tribal and territorial defenders, the people protecting small utilities, public hospitals and K-12 networks with almost no security staff. Eligible operators can request access, training and technical assistance through the Daybreak site.

Rural Health Transformation Program funding tracker: CMS awards Arkansas $149.3M; Hawaii receives $58M

CMS keeps releasing Rural Health Transformation Program awards: $149.3 million to Arkansas on Aug. 31 and $58 million to Hawaii on Sept. 1. Arkansas is putting $6.3 million into AI-enabled SMART rooms and telehealth upgrades; Alaska is spending $3.1 million on a statewide AI imaging network across 21 acute care hospitals.

The $50 billion, five-year program flows through state solicitations, so rural hospitals and clinics compete at the state level, not with CMS. Track your state's subaward process now; the Fierce tracker shows what each state has already committed.

AI Tutors Not Yet a Replacement for Humans, Research Says

Stanford's National Student Support Accelerator found AI tutors go largely unused: students averaged two to five minutes a week in one study, and a randomized Khanmigo trial across 18 Hamilton County, Tennessee middle schools produced learning gains no better than not using it.

States are buying anyway. New Mexico spends $2.7 million a year on Amira, Iowa has committed $5.5 million, and North Dakota runs a $2.6 million federal grant, money thin-staffed rural districts could otherwise put toward human tutors.

Many localities have tried data center moratoriums, tracker finds

The National League of Cities launched a tracker counting 76 cities, counties and towns that attempted data center moratoriums or bans, most of them successfully. Marshall County, Indiana; Monterey Park, California; and St. Charles, Missouri enacted permanent bans, and nearly 40 Georgia local governments have approved some form of pause.

For a small county board facing its first hyperscale proposal, the tracker is free precedent: 28 governments passed zoning ordinances instead of bans, and St. Louis negotiated roughly $15 million in community benefits.