Artificial intelligence is no longer just answering questions. It’s starting to take action.

From booking appointments and answering phone calls to managing follow-ups and completing administrative tasks, AI agents are introducing a new way for veterinary practices to operate.

But what does this shift actually mean for veterinary teams? And how can practices take advantage of these capabilities without sacrificing the personal connections that make veterinary medicine so special?

During Otto’s recent webinar, “The Agents Are Coming: How AI Is Shifting From Asking to Action,” Dr. Adam Little, veterinarian and CEO and Co-Founder of The Veterinary Intelligence Company, explored how rapidly AI is evolving, what AI agents are already capable of, and how veterinary practices can prepare for what’s next.

Here are the biggest takeaways from the conversation.

1. AI Adoption Is Growing, but Veterinary Workflows Haven’t Caught Up

AI has evolved dramatically over the past few years, becoming more accessible, affordable, and capable of handling increasingly complex tasks.

And veterinary professionals are taking notice.

According to the 2026 State of AI in Veterinary Medicine report from Digitail and AAHA, 83.7% of surveyed veterinary professionals reported using AI at work, compared to just 39.2% in 2024.

However, there’s a significant difference between using AI and successfully integrating it into daily workflows.

The same report found that:

• 65% reported little or no workflow change since adopting AI.
• 31% reported having none of four key AI adoption supports: training, guidelines, an AI champion, or formal evaluation.
• 80.5% of surveyed front-desk professionals reported using AI, compared to 27.5% in 2024.

While these surveys included different respondents, the findings illustrate how quickly AI adoption is expanding across veterinary medicine.

Yet many practices are still figuring out how to turn that adoption into meaningful operational improvements.

As Dr. Little explained, the technology is advancing faster than organizations are learning to fully utilize it.

The takeaway? Simply adding AI tools to your technology stack isn’t enough. The real opportunity comes from identifying workflows where AI can eliminate repetitive tasks, improve efficiency, and give veterinary professionals more time for meaningful work.

2. AI Is Moving From Answering Questions to Taking Action

One of the biggest shifts happening in artificial intelligence is the transition from traditional chatbots to AI agents.

While the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, their capabilities are fundamentally different.

Traditional AI chatbots answer questions. AI agents can complete tasks.

For example, a chatbot might help your receptionist draft an appointment reminder or explain how to respond to a client’s scheduling request.

An AI agent could potentially take that process further by accessing the appropriate systems, checking appointment availability, scheduling the visit, and sending a confirmation.

Dr. Little described the difference during the webinar:

“Agents allow you to give AI a task or a goal, and it will actually go and do the work.”

Instead of asking AI for instructions, users can increasingly give it an objective and allow it to execute multiple steps toward completing that goal.

For veterinary practices, potential applications include:

• Answering routine client calls and appointment inquiries
• Booking and rescheduling appointments
• Sending reminders and follow-up communications
• Collecting prescription refill requests
• Updating information across connected systems
• Organizing administrative tasks and practice data

The key distinction is that AI agents can interact with tools and systems to complete workflows rather than simply generating information.

For already-busy veterinary teams, that could mean fewer repetitive tasks and more time to focus on patients.

3. Your Clients May Soon Have AI Agents of Their Own

AI agents won’t just change how veterinary practices operate internally.

They could also change how clients interact with your clinic.

Imagine a pet owner asking their personal AI assistant to schedule their dog’s annual wellness appointment.

Rather than searching your website, finding your phone number, and calling during business hours, the owner’s AI agent could potentially handle the process.

It might call your practice, request available appointment times, compare them against the owner’s calendar, and confirm a booking.

During the webinar, Dr. Little demonstrated this type of interaction using an AI agent tasked with scheduling a pet’s vaccination appointment.

This introduces an important consideration for veterinary practices: Your next caller might not be a person. It might be an AI agent acting on behalf of a client.

And these interactions could become increasingly common as AI assistants gain the ability to make calls, interact with businesses, and complete transactions.

For veterinary teams, that raises several questions.

Can your current scheduling process accommodate these interactions? Will your team know when they’re communicating with an AI agent? What information should an outside agent be allowed to access?

Practices don’t necessarily need to have all the answers today.

However, establishing clear policies and creating accessible, efficient communication workflows will become increasingly important as this technology develops.

4. AI Voice Agents Could Transform the Veterinary Front Desk

For many veterinary practices, the phone remains one of the biggest sources of daily interruptions.

Between appointment requests, prescription refills, scheduling changes, and general client questions, front-desk teams can spend much of their day managing incoming calls.

And when calls go unanswered, practices risk missing opportunities to provide care.

A 2025 study published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association examined 5,053 attempts to schedule routine puppy appointments across six states.

The research found that:

• 15.1% of callers were unable to connect with the practice.
• 8.2% experienced hold times exceeding five minutes.
• 3.9% were told no appointments were available.

These findings highlight an important distinction: Sometimes the barrier to veterinary care isn’t appointment availability. It’s the ability to reach the practice in the first place.

That’s where AI voice agents could make a difference.

Unlike traditional automated phone systems, newer AI voice technology can increasingly understand natural conversations, respond quickly, access connected tools, and complete certain tasks.

What Does This Look Like in a Real Veterinary Practice?

During the webinar, Dr. Little highlighted the experience of West Coast Animal Hospital in San Diego, which introduced an AI receptionist through a phased rollout.

Rather than immediately handing over its entire phone system, the practice started with one narrow workflow: prescription refill calls.

According to results reported by the practice’s operator, the AI agent eventually handled 95% of refill calls within that initial workflow.

The practice then expanded the agent’s responsibilities to appointment cancellations, rescheduling, after-hours calls, and additional front-desk tasks.

By its fourth phase, the agent could assist with appointment booking, deposits, forms, and routing more complex requests to staff.

The reported results were significant:

• 100–150 calls per day absorbed by the AI agent
• Approximately 50% of call volume handled by AI
• One CSR promoted into a technician assistant role

These are results from one practice’s implementation, not industry-wide benchmarks. However, they demonstrate what can happen when AI is introduced strategically.

The goal wasn’t simply to automate phone calls.

It was to give the veterinary team more opportunities to focus on higher-value responsibilities.

As Dr. Little explained:

“I think for me, this is the vision of where this can go, which is not reducing people, or taking away their jobs and their purpose, but giving them more meaningful work and empowering them.”

5. AI Agents Need Training, Permissions, and Guardrails

As AI agents become more capable, veterinary practices will need to think carefully about how they’re introduced into existing workflows.

After all, an AI agent that can take action inside your practice management software needs more oversight than a chatbot that simply drafts a response.

Dr. Little encouraged practices to approach AI implementation similarly to onboarding a new employee.

“You are onboarding a digital worker.”

That means establishing clear responsibilities, providing appropriate access, and defining when human intervention is required.

Start With Clearly Defined Responsibilities

Not every task should be delegated to AI.

Dr. Little outlined three categories veterinary practices can use when evaluating potential workflows.

Routine and reversible tasks

These are generally the best starting points for automation because mistakes can be identified and corrected relatively easily.

Examples include appointment reminders, confirmations, and routine scheduling requests.

Tasks requiring supervision

Some workflows involve information that contributes to clinical or financial decisions.

Prescription refill requests and estimates, for example, may be appropriate for AI-assisted intake and routing, but they still require the appropriate human oversight.

Consequential and personal decisions

Clinical triage, communicating difficult news, and obtaining informed consent require professional judgment, empathy, and accountability.

These responsibilities should remain human-led.

Establish AI Guardrails Before Expanding

Dr. Little also emphasized the importance of protecting practice and client information.

Before deploying AI agents, veterinary practices should consider:

• Permissions: What information and systems can the agent access?
• Human oversight: Which actions require staff review or approval?
• Transparency: When should clients be informed they’re interacting with AI?
• Audit trails: Can your team review the agent’s conversations and actions?
• Data privacy: How is client and patient information stored, protected, and used?

These considerations become increasingly important as agents gain access to more sensitive information and begin performing more complex tasks.

The safest approach is to give AI agents only the access necessary to complete their assigned responsibilities and expand those permissions as they demonstrate reliability.

6. The Best AI Strategy Starts With One Small Workflow

With so many new AI capabilities emerging, it can be tempting to automate everything at once.

But Dr. Little emphasized that successful implementation doesn’t require a complete operational overhaul.

Instead, practices should start small and build trust over time.

His recommended approach was straightforward:

Step 1: Choose one narrow, reversible task.

Identify a repetitive workflow that consumes staff time but doesn’t require complex clinical judgment.

Appointment confirmations, reminders, and routine administrative requests can be good starting points.

Step 2: Measure the results.

Track the workflow for a month to understand whether automation is actually improving operations.

Consider metrics such as time saved, calls handled, staff interruptions, and task completion rates.

Step 3: Expand one workflow at a time.

Once the initial process is working reliably, consider introducing additional responsibilities.

Step 4: Document your policies and expectations.

Define which tasks AI can perform, what requires human approval, and how your team should handle exceptions.

This last step is especially important.

Many veterinary practices rely on institutional knowledge that exists primarily in employees’ heads.

Documenting workflows and standard operating procedures doesn’t just make AI implementation easier. It can also improve training, consistency, and communication across the entire practice.

7. The Future of Veterinary AI Should Create More Human Moments

One of the most important messages from the webinar was that AI adoption shouldn’t come at the expense of the relationships veterinary professionals build with clients and patients.

In fact, the opposite should be the goal.

Veterinary teams already spend significant time managing administrative responsibilities that compete with patient care.

Phone calls, documentation, scheduling, reminders, and follow-ups are all necessary parts of running a successful practice.

But they shouldn’t consume every available minute.

By automating appropriate administrative tasks, practices can create more opportunities for the work that requires a human touch.

Think about what your team could do with fewer interruptions.

A CSR could spend more time helping a worried pet owner understand their next steps.

A veterinarian could focus more fully on the patient in front of them instead of worrying about unfinished documentation.

A practice manager could spend less time troubleshooting daily workflows and more time supporting their team.

As Dr. Little shared:

“The goal of this is to then free up your team to be able to create more meaningful human moments.”

That’s ultimately where AI has the greatest potential in veterinary medicine.

Not replacing the people who make veterinary care possible, but giving them more time to do the work that matters most.

How Otto Helps Veterinary Practices Put AI and Automation to Work

While the future of AI agents continues to evolve, veterinary practices don’t have to wait to start reducing repetitive work.

Otto helps veterinary teams simplify everyday operations by bringing client communication, scheduling, AI-powered documentation, and automated workflows together in one platform.

With Otto, practices can:

• Reduce documentation time with AI Scribe: Capture conversations and generate SOAP note drafts, giving veterinarians more time to focus on patients.
• Simplify client communication: Manage texts, emails, and client conversations without constantly switching between disconnected systems.
• Automate repetitive outreach: Keep clients informed with appointment reminders, confirmations, and follow-up communications.
• Make scheduling easier: Give clients convenient online booking options while reducing unnecessary phone calls.
• Reconnect with lapsed patients: Use OttoPilot to identify patients overdue for visits and support targeted outreach.
• Keep information connected: Reduce manual work with integrations that help information flow between Otto and your practice management system.

As AI continues shifting from answering questions to taking action, connected workflows and reliable information will become even more important.

The practices that benefit most won’t necessarily be those adopting every new technology.

They’ll be the ones using technology intentionally to reduce friction, support their teams, and improve the client experience.

[See How Otto Can Simplify Your Practice — Book a Demo]

The Bottom Line: AI Agents Are Coming. Is Your Practice Ready?

AI agents represent an important shift in how veterinary practices may manage daily operations and interact with clients.

But preparing for that future doesn’t mean handing every responsibility over to artificial intelligence.

It means understanding where automation can create value, establishing clear boundaries, and introducing new capabilities thoughtfully.

The most successful practices will likely be those that combine the efficiency of AI with the expertise, empathy, and personal connection of their veterinary teams.

Because while AI may change how the work gets done, the purpose of veterinary medicine remains the same: providing exceptional care to pets and the people who love them.

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