How to Use AI in a Veterinary Practice to Improve Operations

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Why AI Is Coming to Veterinary Practices 2. Key AI Use Cases in a Veterinary Practice - 2.1. Automating Reception and Appointment Scheduling - 2.2. Client Communication Before and After Visits - 2.3. Internal Management and Team Productivity - 2.4. Medical AI: Diagnostics, Imaging and Clinical Decision Support 3. Tangible Benefits for a Veterinary Practice 4. Focus on Automated Reception with Versatik 5. How to Deploy AI Step by Step in a Veterinary Practice 6. Ethical, Regulatory and Best Practice Considerations 7. Conclusion and Call to Action

1. Introduction: Why AI Is Coming to Veterinary Practices

The veterinary sector is going through a period of deep structural tension. In France alone, there are approximately 20,000 practicing veterinarians serving over 80 million companion animals and livestock. The workload per practitioner continues to grow, while recruiting new staff — both veterinarians and veterinary assistants (VAs) — becomes harder every year. The same trends are playing out across Europe and North America.

The phone: the number one friction point. In most veterinary practices and clinics, the phone remains the primary contact channel with pet owners. Industry studies show that a medium-sized practice receives between 80 and 150 calls per day, a significant portion of which concern recurring requests: appointment scheduling, opening hours, pricing, prescription renewals, post-operative follow-up. VAs spend an average of 2 to 3 hours per day on the phone — time that is not spent on care, physical reception, or supporting clients during consultations.

Rapidly rising client expectations. Pet owners, accustomed to the responsiveness of digital services in other sectors (e-commerce, human healthcare, banking), now expect 24/7 availability, fast responses, and a seamless experience across multiple channels (phone, chat, email, WhatsApp). The gap between these expectations and the reality of a practice that is often reachable only during business hours generates frustration, missed calls, and ultimately, lost clients.

The VA shortage: an aggravating factor. The veterinary assistant profession suffers from a lack of attractiveness linked to working conditions (hours, stress, compensation). According to industry data, annual turnover exceeds 25% in some practices. Recruiting and training a new VA takes several months, during which the existing team absorbs the overload.

AI as an operational lever, not a substitute. Faced with this reality, artificial intelligence is not arriving in veterinary practices to replace professionals. It is emerging as a complementary tool capable of handling repetitive, low clinical value tasks, allowing teams to refocus on their core mission: animal care, quality client relationships, and medical expertise. The goal is clear: save time, reduce operational stress, and improve service quality — without dehumanising the relationship between the practice and its clients.

2. Key AI Use Cases in a Veterinary Practice

2.1. Automating Reception and Appointment Scheduling

Reception — whether by phone, digital, or in person — is the first point of contact between the pet owner and the practice. It is also the function that consumes the most human time for tasks that are often standardisable.

Voicebots and chatbots dedicated to veterinary reception. Next-generation AI voice agents (voicebots) and conversational agents (chatbots) can automatically answer calls, understand the pet owner's request in natural language, qualify the reason (routine consultation, emergency, vaccine, surgery, post-op follow-up, simple information request), and suggest appropriate time slots. All within seconds, with no wait time for the caller.

Integration with calendars and practice management software. To be truly effective, an AI reception agent must integrate with the practice's management software (e.g. Vétocom, GMvet, Vetup, Bourgelat, or equivalent systems in your region) or at minimum with a shared online calendar. This integration enables:

• Real-time access to practitioner availability
• Suggesting only coherent time slots (duration adapted to consultation type, respecting surgical blocks, managing emergencies)
• Automatically creating appointment records without duplicate entry
• Sending instant confirmation by SMS or email to the pet owner

Handling simultaneous and after-hours calls. Unlike a VA who can only handle one call at a time, an AI agent can process multiple conversations simultaneously. It operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, capturing calls outside business hours — a time slot when many pet owners try to reach their vet.

Intelligent call filtering. AI can also filter low-value calls (commercial solicitation, surveys, wrong numbers) and only transfer to the human team those calls that require qualified intervention. This filtering frees up considerable time for VAs.

2.2. Client Communication Before and After Visits

The client relationship in a veterinary practice extends well beyond the consultation. Pre- and post-visit touchpoints are numerous and often poorly managed due to lack of time.

Automated reminders. AI enables the implementation of automatic reminder sequences for:

• Upcoming appointments (D-2, D-1, H-2) by SMS or email, significantly reducing the no-show rate (estimated between 8% and 15% in veterinary practices)
• Annual or semi-annual vaccination reminders
• Periodic antiparasitic treatments
• Recommended health check-ups based on age and species (senior check-up, pre-anaesthetic assessment)
• Prescription renewals for chronic treatments

Intelligent post-operative follow-up. After a surgical procedure, AI can send personalised follow-up sequences: post-op instructions at D+1, checking the animal's condition at D+3, reminder for suture removal at D+10. If a response indicates a complication (fever, swelling, loss of appetite), the agent can automatically alert the veterinary team.

Satisfaction surveys and review collection. Automatic satisfaction surveys sent after each visit help detect dissatisfaction in real time and feed online review platforms (Google, Yelp), an important lever for acquiring new clients.

2.3. Internal Management and Team Productivity

Beyond reception and client communication, AI offers significant productivity gains on internal administrative tasks.

Automatic consultation transcription and summarisation (AI Scribe). AI "medical scribe" tools record the conversation between the veterinarian and the pet owner during the consultation, then automatically generate a structured report in SOAP format (Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan). The practitioner only needs to review and validate, instead of writing the full report from scratch. The time saved is estimated at 5 to 15 minutes per consultation, or potentially more than an hour per day for a practitioner handling 10 to 15 daily consultations.

Specialised solutions are emerging for the veterinary sector, such as Scribenote, VetRec, or Talkatoo, which are trained on veterinary vocabulary and protocols.

Automation of administrative tasks. AI can also handle:

• Automatic invoicing based on procedures performed
• Unpaid invoice follow-ups
• Inventory management and medication ordering (threshold alerts, restocking suggestions)
• Generating activity reports (number of consultations by type, revenue per practitioner, room occupancy rates)

Optimised scheduling. Optimisation algorithms can analyse appointment histories to suggest more realistic consultation durations, identify underused time slots, and propose schedule adjustments that maximise occupancy rates without creating overload.

2.4. Medical AI: Diagnostics, Imaging and Clinical Decision Support

Veterinary medical AI is the most promising — but also the most sensitive — area of artificial intelligence applied to the sector. Unlike reception or administrative tools, medical AI directly touches clinical practice and requires rigorous oversight.

AI-assisted medical imaging analysis. This is the most mature area of veterinary medical AI. Several commercial solutions already exist and are used routinely in specialised clinics:

• Radiography: deep learning algorithms (convolutional neural networks, CNNs) trained on tens of thousands of veterinary images can detect anomalies on thoracic radiographs (pleural effusion, pulmonary masses, cardiomegaly), abdominal radiographs (foreign bodies, gastric dilation), and musculoskeletal images (fractures, dysplasia, osteoarthritis). Solutions such as SignalPET, Vetology AI, or ImpriMed offer near real-time analysis.
• Ultrasound: AI is beginning to be used to assist practitioners in interpreting ultrasound images, particularly in cardiology (automatic cardiac chamber measurements, valvular disease detection) and abdominal imaging.
• Dermatology: computer vision models are trained to identify skin lesions from photographs (hot spots, skin tumours, allergic dermatitis). Some applications allow pet owners to submit a photo before the consultation for pre-triage.
• Cytology and histopathology: AI can assist veterinary pathologists in analysing cytology slides, identifying atypical cells and classifying tumours. ImpriMed, for example, uses AI to predict chemotherapy response in animals with lymphoma.

Differential diagnosis support. AI-augmented expert systems can, based on symptoms entered by the veterinarian, propose a list of differential diagnoses ranked by probability, suggest relevant complementary tests, and recall recommended treatment protocols. These tools function as an instant "second opinion," particularly useful for general practitioners facing unusual cases or newly graduated vets early in their career.

Monitoring and early alerts during hospitalisation. In facilities equipped with connected sensors (IoT), AI can continuously monitor vital parameters of hospitalised animals (heart rate, respiratory rate, temperature, activity) and trigger alerts in case of deterioration. This intelligent monitoring reduces the risk of undetected complications during the night or low-staffing periods.

Predictive medicine and genomics. An emerging field involves the use of AI to analyse genomic data and predict predispositions to certain diseases (hip dysplasia in large breeds, heart disease in Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, etc.). These analyses enable more targeted preventive medicine and personalised screening recommendations.

Essential limits and precautions. Despite its promise, veterinary medical AI has limitations that are essential to understand:

• Training data quality: AI models are only as good as the data they are trained on. In veterinary medicine, annotated datasets remain limited compared to human medicine, and inter-species variations (dogs, cats, exotic pets, equines, cattle) considerably complicate training.
• Over-reliance risk: an AI result presented with a high confidence score may lead the practitioner to lower their guard. AI must never substitute for the veterinarian's clinical judgement.
• Legal liability: under current law, the veterinarian remains responsible for diagnosis and treatment. AI is a decision support tool, not a decision maker.
• Regulatory validation: unlike human medicine (CE marking, FDA clearance), there is no harmonised regulatory framework for veterinary medical AI devices in Europe yet. Some stakeholders are calling for the implementation of similar validation standards.
• Bias and false positives/negatives: every AI model produces errors. A false negative (undetected anomaly) can delay a diagnosis; a false positive can lead to unnecessary tests and anxiety for the pet owner.

3. Tangible Benefits for a Veterinary Practice

3.1. Operational and Financial Gains

Recover several hours per week on repetitive tasks. Automating phone reception, reminders, and consultation report writing frees up an average of 10 to 15 hours per week for a practice with 3 to 5 practitioners. This recovered time can be reinvested in additional consultations, continuing education, or simply reducing the workload.

Drastically reduce missed calls. A 24/7 AI voice agent can handle 70% to 90% of incoming calls without human intervention. For a practice that misses 20 to 30 calls per day, this potentially represents dozens of recovered appointments each week — and revenue that doesn't go to competitors.

Optimise calendar fill rate. The combination of automatic appointment booking + reminders + cancellation management reduces the no-show rate by 30% to 50% and improves time slot occupancy. The financial impact is direct and measurable.

Reduce recruitment and training costs. By automating the most time-consuming tasks, the practice reduces its dependence on hiring additional VAs and can better retain its existing team by improving working conditions.

3.2. Improved Client Experience

Fast responses and permanent availability. Pet owners receive an immediate response to their requests, regardless of the time of day. The frustration of phone waiting or being unable to reach the practice disappears.

Multiple channels, consistent experience. AI enables a homogeneous experience across all contact channels (phone, chat, SMS, email), which matches the habits of pet owners, especially younger ones.

Better follow-up and personalisation. Automated reminders and post-op follow-up show the pet owner that the practice cares for their animal beyond the consultation. This is a powerful loyalty driver.

3.3. Burnout Prevention and Employer Attractiveness

Reduce daily team stress. The constantly ringing phone is one of the top sources of stress cited by VAs. By absorbing the majority of calls, AI creates a calmer work environment, conducive to concentration and quality of care.

Make the practice more attractive to candidates. A practice that uses AI to automate tedious tasks positions itself as a modern facility that cares about employee well-being. This is an increasingly differentiating recruitment argument in a tight market.

3.4. Benefits of Medical AI for Clinical Practice

A diagnostic safety net. AI imaging analysis acts as a systematic second reader. It can detect subtle anomalies that a tired or rushed eye might miss, particularly at the end of the day or during extended shifts. Studies show that the combined use of veterinarian + AI reduces diagnostic error rates by 20% to 30% on thoracic radiographs.

Accelerated diagnostic workflow. AI analysis of a radiograph takes a few seconds, compared to several minutes for a thorough human reading. This speeds up patient management, provides preliminary results faster to the pet owner, and streamlines the patient journey.

Practitioner skill development. By proposing reasoned differential diagnoses and protocol reminders, medical AI plays an implicit continuing education role, particularly beneficial for young practitioners or generalists who handle varied cases.

Enhanced preventive medicine. Predictive analysis from genomic data and medical history enables targeted screening recommendations and anticipation of certain conditions, improving prognosis and reducing long-term treatment costs.

Better traceability and clinical documentation. AI-generated reports (imaging analyses, consultation summaries) create more complete, more structured, and more easily exploitable clinical documentation for longitudinal patient follow-up.

> Important: these medical AI benefits relate to specialised tools developed by publishers dedicated to animal health. Versatik does not offer medical or diagnostic AI — our expertise is focused exclusively on automating reception, client communication, and administrative tasks (see section 4).

4. Focus on Automated Reception with Versatik

4.1. Versatik for Veterinary Practices

Versatik develops multimodal AI agents — voice and chat — specifically designed to automate reception for veterinary practices and clinics, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Clear positioning: reception, not diagnostics. Versatik focuses on the area where AI delivers the most immediate and measurable gains: managing incoming communication flows (phone calls, chat messages, web forms). We do not offer medical AI, assisted diagnostics, or imaging analysis — that is not our area of expertise. Our added value is freeing up time for veterinary teams by automating interactions that do not require clinical skills.

Multichannel availability. Versatik agents can be deployed across multiple channels simultaneously:

• Phone (voicebot): the agent answers calls, understands requests in natural language, and responds fluently and naturally
• Web chat (chatbot): integrated into the practice's website to respond to visitors in real time
• SMS and messaging: option to extend to WhatsApp, Messenger, or other channels as needed

4.2. Typical Versatik Use Cases in Veterinary Clinics

Automatic appointment scheduling. The Versatik agent manages the entire appointment booking journey:

• Identifying the reason (consultation, vaccination, surgery, post-operative follow-up, emergency)
• Proposing available time slots in real time, synchronised with the practice's calendar
• Instant confirmation via SMS or email
• Managing modifications and cancellations

Call triage. The agent can distinguish urgent from routine requests using a decision tree configured with the veterinary team. When an emergency is identified (dyspnoea, poisoning, trauma, difficult labour), the call is immediately transferred to a team member. For non-urgent requests, the agent handles them directly or schedules a callback.

Answering frequently asked questions. The agent is trained on the practice's knowledge base and can reliably answer recurring questions:

• Opening hours and access
• Indicative consultation and procedure pricing
• Prescription renewal procedures
• Pre-operative instructions (fasting, medications to stop)
• Practical information (parking, disabled access, payment methods)

Filtering commercial calls. Commercial solicitations, telephone surveys, and other requests unrelated to clinical activity are identified and handled by the agent, without involving the human team.

4.3. Specific Advantages of the Versatik Solution

Total availability without interruption. The Versatik agent operates 24/7, including nights, weekends, and public holidays. It can handle multiple calls or conversations simultaneously, with no wait time.

Personalisation in the clinic's name. Each agent is custom-configured: clinic name, practitioner names, specialties, internal protocols, communication tone (formal, warm, etc.). The pet owner feels they are interacting with the practice, not a generic outsourced service.

Integration with the existing ecosystem. Versatik integrates with online calendars, websites, messaging tools, and SMS/email sending systems for confirmations and reminders. The goal is to fit into the practice's existing workflow without disrupting it.

GDPR compliance and European hosting. Data is hosted in Europe and processed in compliance with GDPR. Conversations are encrypted, retention periods are configurable, and no data is shared with third parties.

4.4. Expected Measurable Impact

Results observed in the first veterinary practices using Versatik:

• 70% to 85% of calls handled without human intervention
• 40% to 60% reduction in time spent on the phone by VAs
• Missed call rate drops from 25-30% to under 5%
• Calendar fill rate improvement of 15% to 25%
• Return on investment typically achieved within the 2nd month of use

5. How to Deploy AI Step by Step in a Veterinary Practice

5.1. Assess the Current Situation

Before introducing any AI tool, it is essential to carry out an accurate diagnosis of the practice's current situation:

Measure call volumes. How many incoming calls per day? What percentage are answered? What is the average wait time? How many calls are missed? At what times do call peaks occur?

Identify call reasons. What proportion concerns appointment scheduling? Information requests? Emergencies? Post-op follow-up? Commercial solicitation? This breakdown allows for correct sizing of the AI solution.

Evaluate administrative time. How much time do VAs spend on phone reception, appointment entry, and manual reminders? How much time do veterinarians spend writing their consultation reports?

Measure the no-show rate. A rate above 10% alone justifies implementing automated reminders.

5.2. Choose the First Use Cases (Quick Wins)

The most common mistake is wanting to automate everything at once. The winning strategy is to start with high-impact, low-complexity use cases:

Phase 1 — Phone reception and appointment scheduling. This is the quintessential quick win: fast ROI, relatively simple configuration, immediate impact on team workload. Deploying a Versatik voice agent on this scope takes a few days to a few weeks depending on calendar complexity.

Phase 2 — Automatic reminders and no-show reduction. Once reception is automated, add appointment reminders, vaccination reminders, and post-op follow-up sequences. These automations run in the background and require no human intervention once configured.

Phase 3 — Consultation transcription and summarisation. If the practice wants to go further, integrating a veterinary AI Scribe tool can be considered at a later stage. This step requires a longer testing phase to validate transcription quality on the practice's specific vocabulary.

Phase 4 — Medical AI (optional and supervised). Adopting diagnostic AI tools (imaging analysis, differential diagnosis support) should only be considered after stabilising the previous phases, with appropriate team training and a clear protocol for human validation of results.

5.3. Involve the Team and Reassure About AI's Role

Communicate clearly about objectives. AI replaces neither VAs nor veterinarians. It eliminates repetitive and time-consuming tasks so that everyone can focus on what makes their profession valuable. This message must be carried by the practice's management and repeated regularly.

Train the team on using the tool. VAs must understand how the AI agent works, which calls it handles, how to view the interaction history, and how to intervene manually when necessary.

Establish a feedback loop. Encourage the team to report cases where the AI misunderstood a request, gave an incorrect response, or could not handle a situation. This feedback is essential for refining scenarios and continuously improving service quality.

Highlight the gains. Regularly share the results achieved (calls handled, time saved, satisfaction rates) with the entire team to maintain buy-in.

5.4. Measure Results and Adjust

Define clear KPIs from the start. Priority indicators to track:

• Percentage of calls handled by AI vs transferred to humans
• Average AI handling time
• Client satisfaction rate (post-call survey)
• No-show rate before/after
• Calendar fill rate before/after
• Daily time spent on the phone by VAs before/after

Continuously adjust scenarios. The first weeks of deployment are crucial: analyse conversations, identify friction points, adjust scripts and triage rules. An AI agent improves over time when provided with feedback.

Expand gradually. Once results are validated on the initial scope, extend automation to other channels (chat, SMS, WhatsApp) and other use cases (reminders, post-op follow-up, satisfaction surveys).

6. Ethical, Regulatory and Best Practice Considerations

Data Protection (GDPR)

Veterinary practices process personal data (owner contact details, animal information, animal health data). Any AI solution must guarantee:

• Informed consent from owners regarding the processing of their data
• Limited and configurable retention periods for recordings and transcriptions
• Right of access, rectification, and deletion of data in accordance with GDPR
• Data hosting in Europe with compliant subcontractors
• Security policy including encryption of data in transit and at rest

Transparency Towards Clients

Inform that the interlocutor is an AI agent. The pet owner must know they are interacting with an automated system. This is a legal obligation (EU AI directive) and a matter of trust. The agent must clearly identify itself.

Offer an escape route to a human. At any point during the conversation, the pet owner must be able to request to speak with a team member. This option must be simple and immediate.

Strict Medical Limits

AI does not diagnose. No conversational agent or analysis tool should substitute for the veterinarian's clinical judgement. Medical AI is a decision support tool, not a decision maker.

AI does not prescribe. Therapeutic suggestions generated by AI must always be validated by the practitioner before implementation.

The veterinarian remains responsible. Under current law, responsibility for the veterinary medical act rests entirely with the practitioner. Using an AI tool does not transfer this responsibility.

Medical AI Oversight

Validate tools before deployment. Any medical AI tool must be evaluated for its sensitivity, specificity, and error rate before being used in routine clinical practice. Favour solutions with peer-reviewed scientific publications.

Maintain human competence. Using diagnostic AI tools must not lead to a degradation of the practitioner's reading and interpretation skills. AI is a complement, not a substitute for continuing education.

7. Conclusion and Call to Action

Artificial intelligence represents an unprecedented opportunity for veterinary practices facing increasing pressure on their teams, schedules, and margins. Far from dehumanising the relationship with pet owners, AI actually strengthens it by freeing professionals from repetitive tasks so they can refocus on what matters most: care, listening, and clinical expertise.

The benefits are tangible and measurable: hours recovered every week, calls that are no longer missed, a better-filled calendar, less stressed teams, and better-informed clients. Medical AI, meanwhile, opens fascinating prospects for improving diagnostic accuracy and preventive medicine, provided it is used rigorously and under the veterinarian's responsibility.

The best starting point? Automating reception and appointment scheduling. It is the use case that offers the fastest return on investment, the simplest deployment, and the most natural team adoption.

Versatik supports veterinary practices and clinics through this transition with AI voice and chat agents designed specifically for the sector. Our approach: a clear scope (reception, not diagnostics), personalisation in your practice's name, seamless integration with your existing tools, and human support at every step.

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