This study uses survey data on Swedish milk producers, comprising adopters and non-adopters of an automatic milking system (AMS), to comprehensively investigate various aspects of the adoption decision. The results show that farmers report non-profit-related reasons as the most important for the decision to adopt an AMS, whereas profit-related reasons are the most important for the decision not to adopt the AMS. Despite problems with profitability, over 90 per cent of the AMS farmers would recommend the AMS to other milk producers. A probit estimation of the probability of investing in an AMS finds positive effects of the social network, positive beliefs of future profitability and existence of a successor, and negative effects of age, experience, education, share of tenured land and regular use of advisors.