Board-certified internist says DVMs need to shape AI tools before consumer tech companies do

A horse owner gave two medications the veterinarian prescribed, then opened Google mid-morning and sent panicked messages to both the regular DVM and the consulting internist because a search result said the combination could cause serious adverse reactions.

Kate Echeverria, DVM, MS, DACVIM-LAIM, a board-certified equine internal medicine specialist who runs an ambulatory practice in Norton, Massachusetts, wrote about that case in Veterinary Practice News as part of a broader argument. If veterinarians do not participate in shaping AI tools and client-facing resources now, consumer technology companies will build the experience instead, and it will not fit how veterinarians actually work or what clients actually need, she wrote.

The Google problem Echeverria names

Echeverria had discussed the two-medication protocol at length with the owner, explained the monitoring plan, and coordinated with the regular veterinarian. The mare needed both drugs because of two different diagnoses. Echeverria had used the combination in other horses with no adverse effects.

The owner agreed to the plan. Then she searched online the morning she gave the first doses, found misinformation that contradicted the veterinarian's guidance, and called in a panic. Google was incorrect, Echeverria wrote, and the answer was not grounded in that specific horse's health. After talking through it, the owner agreed the veterinarian's guidance was sound. Echeverria also recommended a veterinarian-informed pet health resource the owner could turn to for future questions, one designed with veterinary input and appropriate guardrails.

Echeverria sees clients wanting to learn more and be more involved in their pets' health. She welcomes that, but the challenge is making sure pet owners turn to a trusted source, she wrote. According to Echeverria, "pet owners are turning to ChatGPT and 'Dr. Google' to look up symptoms and medications, and the information they find is often incorrect or misguided," and "veterinarians need to educate clients about resources that work with veterinarians to develop guardrails and monitor the information provided."

The tools Echeverria sees as useful

Echeverria named one area where she sees AI helping: organizing pet medical records. According to her, there is no equivalent to a human patient's MyChart "for pets, where all the veterinary records for one pet can be easily accessed by the veterinarian examining the pet," and "owners are often not good at remembering pertinent information about their pets' health."

Some pet technology tools allow owners or veterinarians to organize health records, lab results, and vaccine records, then share that information with any veterinarian examining the pet, according to Echeverria. She described this as extremely helpful when a client takes a pet to urgent care or the emergency hospital, so the examining veterinarian can see a snapshot of the pet's health without reading through years of medical records. She also sees it useful for competition horses traveling and being seen by a new veterinarian or care team.

Echeverria wrote that "with some of these tools, AI can help organize the information so it is easy to view and access." Many of these apps also let owners document observations and changes in their pets over time, which Echeverria described as very useful information for veterinarians. She wrote that "these tools are helping pet owners become better informed and know what to ask" at their vet appointment, and that "the goal should be not to replace veterinarians, but to empower pet owners to be more proactive and to create a stronger connection between what happens at home and in the" clinic. According to Echeverria, "those owners may also be more willing to pursue bloodwork and further testing because they understand the value of the information."

We write one of these every week for people running practices and making clinical decisions. subscribe to VeterinaryPracticeNow.

The window Echeverria says is closing

Echeverria wrote that she "was initially very skeptical of AI and how it would change things, but" learned to keep an open mind and explore it further. She has been fortunate to have advisors educate her on how AI can assist the profession and what veterinarians still need to be cautious about.

According to Echeverria, AI innovations have appeared in the veterinary workplace "from transcription tools, to scribes and radiographic readings," and veterinarians "need to do" their "homework and ensure these tools are developed correctly, ideally with input from veterinarians." She wrote that "it is very much an individual decision on what AI tools" a veterinarian is comfortable using in the workplace.

Many veterinary organizations, including "the American Veterinary Medical Association" (AVMA) "and the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine" (ACVIM), have AI task forces that are investigating and helping veterinarians "become more educated about the use of AI tools in practice," according to Echeverria. "The September 2026 edition of Veterinary Clinics of North America: Small Animal Practice focuses on Artificial Intelligence in Small Animal Veterinary Medicine, with articles covering how veterinary professionals can evaluate, adopt, and contribute to AI-based tools in practice," she wrote.

Echeverria highlighted the word "contribute." Veterinarians need to be involved in developing these tools so the profession "can trust they are being set up efficiently and used appropriately," she wrote. According to her, "the issue focuses primarily on veterinarians' use of AI, but the client aspect of AI in pet health care is also an area where" veterinarians "need to contribute, as pet owners are looking to become more empowered in their pet's health through more information."

Our read

Echeverria's argument is that the profession faces a decision point, not a settled future. If veterinarians do not participate in shaping AI tools and client resources now, consumer technology companies could end up defining that experience instead. The horse case she described is the concrete version of that risk: a client used a resource that was not built with veterinary input, got information that contradicted the veterinarian's clinical judgment, and created a workflow problem for two DVMs.

The tools Echeverria named as useful, record organization and client observation tracking, are the ones where AI assists a task veterinarians already want done, rather than replacing clinical judgment. The tools she flagged as problems are the ones where AI answers clinical questions without veterinary guardrails. That distinction matters as more products enter the market.

We'd also note that Echeverria is "the equine medical director at CompanAIn, a pet wellness platform" she described as powered by trusted, human-centered AI. The piece does not disclose that role in the body text, though it appears in her bio at the end of the source article. A reader evaluating her argument should know she has a commercial stake in one of the AI tools she is advocating for.

← Back to the Newsdesk