How a new pet owner finds a vet in 2026 Picture a first-time dog owner. They just brought home a rescue. They want to find a vet. They don't open Google. They open ChatGPT (or Claude, or Perplexity, or Gemini) and ask, "What are the best-rated vets in my city for a nervous rescue dog?" [...]
This morning, Chewy announced it will acquire Modern Animal, a 29-clinic veterinary group with 100,000+ member families and $125 million in annualized revenue. Chewy's veterinary footprint jumps from 18 locations to 47 overnight. The veterinary profession's reaction was immediate and justified: alarm, frustration, calls to support independently owned practices. I get it. But before we [...]
Key takeaway: The UK just wrapped the most extensive veterinary market investigation ever conducted, and the findings led to legally binding transparency reforms. The same consolidation dynamics are already present in the US. Here's what the data says, what we're seeing across the 600+ independent practices we work with, and why this is worth paying attention [...]
There's a particular kind of mental load that happens in the first sixty seconds of a veterinary appointment. You're scanning the chart, reading the client, reading the pet, and simultaneously trying to recall whether you've seen this animal before and what for. You're forming a plan before you have the full picture — because the [...]
Most conversations about AI in veterinary medicine focus on internal practice efficiency—record-keeping, scribing, streamlined client communication, and automating admin tasks. Useful? Absolutely. But these areas aren’t where the most important change is happening. In fact, the same shift is already unfolding in human healthcare: a recent New York Times article described how patients are using [...]
For years, veterinary medicine has carried the comforting label of “recession-proof.” But new data tells a different story, and so do the voices we’re hearing from hundreds of practices across the country. A recent Frontiers in Veterinary Science study by Neill, Salois & McKay confirms what many teams have already felt: the veterinary industry entered [...]
A husband walks into the clinic carrying a golden retriever. The technician pulls up the appointment: “Annual exam.” “How’s Max been doing?” He shrugs. “Fine, I think. My wife scheduled this.” “Any concerns we should know about?” “Not that I know of.” “Eating normally? Vomiting, diarrhea, coughing?” “Yeah, he seems good. My wife would know [...]
When I started The Veterinary AI Brief, I wasn’t trying to build another podcast. I wanted a place to think out loud with people who are asking the right questions about where veterinary medicine is heading. Every week, we sit down with innovators, clinicians, and researchers who are working at the edge of what’s possible [...]
“Change is coming, and the curve is logarithmic, not linear.” That’s how Robert Sanchez summed it up when we contributed to the AI in Companion Animal Veterinary Medicine Report. It’s a 75-page deep dive led by Jon Ayers, with contributions from Dr. Adam Little, Aaron Massecar, Dr. Jane Brunt, David Kincaid, and Robert himself. It’s [...]
Last week in New Orleans, at the Veterinary Hospital Managers Association (VHMA) conference, we unveiled something our team has been working on quietly for the last two years. It’s called Spotlight, and I believe it’s going to change how practices think about intake. For decades, veterinary intake has been focused on one thing: getting the [...]
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