AI in landscaping: Friend or foe?

The Age of Disruption. In the last 30 years, few words have captured the pace of innovation quite like “disruptor.” It’s the label we give to technologies or companies that don’t just improve an industry, they completely redefine it. But truthfully, few earn that title.

Amazon is one of them. It didn’t just change how people buy everything from dog food to lawn mowers; it reimagined logistics itself. With more than 1.6 million employees worldwide and more than 7 billion packages shipped annually, Amazon’s innovations in fulfillment, warehousing and data automation permanently altered how goods move from factory to front porch.

Uber did it to transportation, Apple did it to communication and Netflix did it to entertainment. Each one flipped an industry on its head.

And now, artificial intelligence is doing the same thing, to everyone.

The next great disruptor

Companies like OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, have launched a new kind of revolution. One not defined by physical products or even by traditional services, but by information itself.

AI doesn’t just gather data, it interprets, summarizes and delivers it in real time, shaped exactly how the user asks.

For the green industry, that means the way we design landscapes, manage customers and run marketing is changing fast. Tasks that once took hours, such as creating proposals, drafting email campaigns or sketching design concepts, can now be done in minutes with the right AI tools. Need a job description? A safety policy? A plant layout suggestion for a shady yard? AI can deliver a strong starting point before your coffee even cools.

There’s no doubt the productivity gains are real. Many companies are saving 10 to 20 hours a week just through automation, scheduling and content tools. For small- to mid-sized landscaping businesses, that kind of efficiency can make the difference between breaking even and breaking through.

But at what cost?

For all its promise, AI carries its share of problems. The most common fears are about job displacement, data security, reduced critical thinking and trust.

We’ve already seen automation reduce the need for certain administrative roles. Chatbots can now handle first-contact inquiries, scheduling and even lead qualifications.

On the marketing side, AI can generate blogs, social posts and ad copy, sometimes good enough that business owners skip human review altogether. While that saves time, it also raises a bigger question: Are we replacing skill with speed?

Then there’s data privacy. Every time you feed client information, estimates or photos into an AI platform, you’re potentially training that system with your company’s data. It’s convenient, but also risky if you don’t fully understand where that information is going.

And the most subtle danger of all: the erosion of critical thinking. As AI becomes a crutch, we risk outsourcing our own judgment. In landscaping, that’s a serious problem. A machine might know a plant’s Latin name, but it doesn’t know how it smells in bloom, or how its color plays against a stone path at sunset. Those insights come from experience, and no algorithm can replace that.

Adapting for the AI era

What do we do? For landscape companies, the answer isn’t to fight AI, it’s to learn to work with it. If your company invests in SEO, your digital marketing team is probably talking about AI optimization.

This means positioning your content so that large language models (LLMs), the engines behind tools like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, can find and reference your business when people ask related questions. It’s the new ranking system on the first page of Google.

If you don’t have a solid SEO strategy, now’s the time. Think of your website as your digital foreman.

The clearer it is that you communicate your expertise, the more likely AI tools are to recommend you when homeowners search for “top-rated landscape designers in Chicago” or “sustainable lawn care near me.”

Companies that embrace this approach early will see huge benefits. AI-powered referrals could become one of the biggest new sources of leads in the next few years.

Finding balance

AI is neither purely friend nor foe, it’s both. It can lighten workloads, streamline operations and open creative doors we never imagined.

But it can also narrow opportunities, reduce visibility and dull the human edge that makes landscaping such a personal craft.

The key is to stay human in how you use it. Let AI handle repetitive stuff so your team can focus on what machines can’t do: building relationships, reading a customer’s unspoken preferences and creating outdoor spaces that feel alive.

Like every true disruptor before it, AI will change how we work. The companies that win won’t be the ones that fight it or follow it blindly; they’ll be the ones that learn to shape it.

From Amazon to OpenAI, disruption has always been about perspective. To some, it looks like a threat. To others, an opportunity.

For the landscape industry, AI represents both a chance to run smarter and serve better, and a challenge to preserve the artistry that defines our work.

The tools may be digital, but the hands that use them are still what make the difference.

Cream of the Crop features a rotating panel from the Harvest Group, a landscape business consulting company. Chris Darnell is Sales/Marketing Consultant at the Harvest Group. He can be reached at chris@harvestlandscapeconsulting.com