14 Jul 2026
AI is here to stay, but understanding it is key. Paul Imrie reports on the thoughts on the subject of speakers at The Vet Symposium, Royal Canin’s annual conference in Montpellier
Paul Imrie
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Veterinary practitioners should not feel backed into a corner by artificial intelligence (AI) or fear it will replace them. Instead, vets, nurses and others in the practice team should be harnessing it to help them deliver the best animal care – and embracing it to make their working lives better.
From diagnostic innovations through to client communication technologies, AI is already massively impacting the veterinary sector. The importance of holding conversations with owners earlier about ageing pets may have been the main message delivered at a global symposium this spring, but the opportunities offered to the professions by AI ran it a very close second.
In her passionate keynote session at The Vet Symposium – Royal Canin’s annual spring conference in Montpellier – Noelia Amoedo said she understood concerns about the ever-evolving computer science. The managing partner at NODEOM, described as a tech founder turned advocate for human-centric AI, said an estimated 40% of global jobs would be impacted by AI and hundreds of millions of job losses were predicted.
But she also emphasised the importance of vets understanding the technology, so they could use it to enhance their expertise rather than replace it.
Noelia said: “This technology is nothing like humans. First of all, when we provide consolation to somebody in time of grief, the way we’re able to relate to them because we experienced ourselves a similar pain has nothing to do with what AI can deliver. Second of all, by experiencing the world, we get access to so much more data than any machine ever can, and we process that data a lot more efficiently, too.
“But third of all, we also think very differently. We do a lot more of a different type of thinking; what is called abductive thinking. [It] leads us to make hypotheses, many hypotheses actually for every situation we encounter, and those hypotheses or informed guesses give us a framework through which we understand the world.”
She explained this abductive thinking stood vets in good stead moving forward. She said: “This is the type of thinking that allows us to connect things that are not seemingly connected, or to explain things that we have never encountered in the past.
“If you use an AI system that has access to data from millions of Labradors, you can be more accurate at diagnosing a common issue.
“But the understanding you have of the context of that individual Labrador – what you feel when you touch its belly, when you look into its eyes, when you smell its breath – and that surprise that triggers the subconscious recollection of the border collie that had come to your clinic a few years ago, can actually spark the guess that defines what data matters – and that changes everything.”
She added: “The way your brain can connect dots is completely different from what artificial intelligence can do, and it is by understanding that and understanding your strengths that you can come out of the corner.”
Concluding, she said it was vital vets used AI systems now because repeated use would aid with “developing your judgement, your wisdom”.
She said: “Should you leave your health expertise to artificial intelligence? My answer would be absolutely not. You need to double down on your domain expertise, but you need to do so taking the time to understand and being present and observing, because that’s how you’re going to bring all your value to the table when collaborating with AI.
“I am sure of one thing: your health expertise and your judgement are going to be absolutely critical in a world of more powerful AI, and cultivating both is what’s going to keep you at the centre of it all.”
Similar themes were seized on by US vet Justine Lee, better known to many online as founder of CPD platform VETgirl, in her symposium session. She explained she was far from technically savvy, joking she had only recently taken up cable television. But she added that with 700 million people in 2025 using ChatGPT, it was clear the 75% of pet owners once using “Dr Google” were now searching with AI for answers to their pets’ ailments.
Dr Lee said: “The benefit of AI and technology is it lets you reclaim your time. We’re all really busy in the clinic, saving lives, and we end up spending so much time documenting medical records on an electronic medical record.
“Why do you as a veterinary professional need to consider and embrace AI? Because what AI offers is speed and data. It’s smarter than us, quote unquote, and it’s faster than us, but we bring the human component.
“We bring the judgement, the ethics, the emotional intelligence, the empathy, the ability to be able to figure out if that diagnostic plan is appropriate, if the diagnoses is important. We get better outcomes together.”
Touching on real-life work-day uses, Dr Lee said: “If I had my ideal goal, it would be the workflow utilising AI with enhanced consultation, and it could be something as simple as having an app on my phone that goes into the exam room with a pet owner.
“As a specialist, I get hundreds of pages of a PDF that I need to summarise and read through really quickly to find out why this patient is referred into the ER.
“Using AI to summarise the most important [parts] of the visit, summarising in less than 200 words in a bulleted format the summary of why this patient is here, and AI spits it out from that PDF immediately, literally, within less than a minute.
“Having that phone in my room with appropriate use of AI, you can subscribe to a programme that is listening to the conversation that you have with the pet owner that summarises the entire [thing] for you.
“The AI summarises the history, you do the physical exam. AI suggests differentials. You still use your brain, and you see if those differentials are appropriate, you decide your treatment plan, and then AI is going to help you create the discharge, the client communication, the reports and the documentation.
“There’s a lot of opportunity for us to become more efficient.”
With AI not going anywhere, she told delegates they needed to adopt it and adapt to it.
Dr Lee said: “Ultimately, my key takeaways are embrace it. It’s here to stay.
“The more you practise with it, the more comfortable you’ll feel with it. It is transformative. But again, humans are always essential for that reasoning, for the higher-level thinking.
“It will be a way for us to be able to improve our efficiency while still providing better care, and hopefully the future is collaborative.”
She warned those assembled they needed to “always, always, always verify the content and check multiple sources”, set appropriate privacy settings, provide staff training and stay up to date on latest AI tools and limitations.
But she concluded: “To me, AI is no longer optional. It’s inevitable. You want to start small, just tweaking a discharge – you could use an old discharge, throw it into AI and say, ‘tweak this into a shorter, more compassionate discharge’.
“I’m going to say, start small, but scale first, and be the clinic that leads, not follows.”