AI is already changing the field. Here's where Best Friends stands
Budgeting. It’s not the sexiest part of animal welfare, but it is one of the most important — because it takes sufficient funding to save lives. But shelters often struggle to put an exact number on the cost of saving cats and dogs. How much do they need for staff? For a specific cleaning supply? For vaccines?
Knowing that budgeting is often the thing standing between cats and dogs living or dying, we wanted to find solutions that can help bridge that gap. And given the state of technology, AI could help us do it. Which it did — but we’ll get to that in a minute.
It’s no exaggeration to say that this is a thrilling moment in animal welfare. AI is opening up avenues for lifesaving that not even a year ago might have seemed like a pipe dream.
Building budgets, crafting adoption bios, interpreting data and identifying opportunities for lifesaving, brainstorming ideas for foster volunteer recruitment, drafting job descriptions — these are just a few of the ways shelters and rescue groups are already using AI every day to build efficiencies and make more time in the day for saving cats and dogs.
We're so excited to use AI as one of the tools that will help us think bigger, move faster, and solve problems that cost time we do not have — time that pets whose lives are on the line do not have. And this is just the beginning.
So how are we going to use AI for lifesaving? I’m so glad you asked.
Our new budget tool, Know Your Baseline, is being introduced on Thursday, August 27, 2026, at 4 p.m. ET. This is the second in our ongoing AI for Lifesaving webinar series. Register here and bring your questions.
Collaboration is a key part of no-kill, and that goes for creating new uses of technology, too. That’s why we are holding an inaugural AI summit in October, where we’ll be convening leaders from the animal welfare and tech sectors to generate ideas that could move more communities to no-kill. Stay tuned for information about how to participate.
We have another opportunity to reach technologists, investors, and creators who could become partners in this mission to use AI for lifesaving with two sessions we’re pitching for SXSW 2027 about how AI can save shelter pets.
The amazing Kasey Spain and I are pitching one session on a new industry platform in development that will use AI to end the killing of shelter pets while Best Friends’ Whitney Bollinger and Steven Martinez, executive director of York County SPCA, are pitching a second session about how AI can drive more adoptions. Voting is open from August 5-23 if you’d like to help us bring these ideas to the national stage.
To vote, follow these easy steps:
- Create a free account with SXSW and confirm your account in your email.
- Log in using your account email and password.
- Click each link below and "Vote ♥️" at the top of each session page:
- Meet the AI Tool Racing to Save Shelter Pets
- The 6% Fix: Shelter Killing Is an AI-Solvable Market Problem
Look, things are changing, and it’s up to us to use that change in the most ethical, most effective ways. AI is here, it’s powerful, and now is when we get to decide how we’re going to use it to save cats' and dogs’ lives. Like always, we’ll do it together.
-Julie
