This Founder Is Working To Make AI Safer for Pet Owners

As artificial intelligence quickly enters healthcare, one question keeps resurfacing: how can AI be used responsibly in situations that affect real lives?

In pet healthcare, that question is becoming increasingly pressing.

Pet owners often turn to the internet during stressful moments - late at night, outside clinic hours, or when they are unable to reach a veterinarian. Until recently, those searches often led to online forums, mixed advice, or worst-case scenarios that heightened anxiety rather than resolved it.

Now, a growing number of platforms are positioning AI as the first step in the pet healthcare journey. However, not all approaches are the same.

Josh Fidrmuc, founder of veterinary telehealth platform Dial A Vet, believes the issue is not whether AI should be used in pet care, but how it can be used safely.

Building Guardrails Around AI in Pet Care

Rather than positioning AI as a diagnostic tool, Dial A Vet has focused on using AI for triage and education, helping pet owners understand urgency and appropriate next steps.

The company's free AI vet chat allows users to describe symptoms, behavioural changes, or medication concerns and receive structured guidance. Crucially, the system is designed to clearly identify red-alert situations and escalate those cases to licensed veterinarians when necessary.

'The risk isn't AI itself,' Fidrmuc has said previously. 'The risk is unstructured advice without accountability.'

To address this, Dial A Vet operates a human-in-the-loop model, where high-priority interactions are reviewed by veterinary professionals and AI outputs are constrained by defined safety boundaries.

Scale Reveals Behaviour, Not Just Technology

Dial A Vet's approach is informed by scale.

The platform attracts around half a million pet owners each month, many arriving through search at the moment a concern arises. A growing share of users now begin with the company's AI vet assistant before deciding whether to book an online consultation with a Dial A Vet veterinarian.

What emerges from this volume is a consistent behavioural pattern: most pet owners are not seeking immediate treatment. They are seeking clarity.

That insight has shaped how Dial A Vet deploys AI — not as a way to bypass veterinarians, but as a means of reducing unnecessary panic while ensuring serious cases reach professional care more quickly.

Data With Responsibility Attached

Each interaction with the AI assistant generates anonymised, structured data points reflecting real-world pet health concerns. Over time, this builds a detailed picture of how owners describe symptoms, what triggers escalation, and where confusion most commonly occurs.

Handled responsibly, this data can support insurers, researchers, and healthcare providers working to improve early intervention and reduce avoidable emergencies.

Handled poorly, it risks becoming another source of misinformation.

Dial A Vet's strategy prioritises constraint over capability, favouring escalation and safety rather than autonomy.

AI as Support, Not a Substitute

Veterinary burnout and staffing shortages are now well-documented globally. Fidrmuc argues that AI, when deployed carefully, can help ease pressure rather than introduce additional risk.

By handling high-volume, low-risk questions, AI systems allow veterinarians to focus on complex cases where human judgment is essential.

The result is not less veterinary involvement, but more targeted involvement.

A Cautious Path Forward

As AI adoption accelerates across healthcare sectors, the companies most likely to succeed will be those that treat AI as infrastructure rather than a replacement for professionals.

In pet healthcare, where emotional stakes are high and access can be uneven, the margin for error is narrow.

Dial A Vet's approach reflects a broader shift underway in the industry: the future of AI in healthcare will be defined less by how powerful it becomes, and more by how safely it is deployed.