Susan Groenveld: How is AI Redefining Pet Healthcare Standards | E37

[00:00:00] came to realize it's because they hide their pain that we don't even know they need to go. So working with farm products, I was actually working with pain management products for cats and they came across a scoring tool and there's multiple versions of a grimace scale

[00:00:17] where cats will be their pain in their face like humans. They grimace and it's highly accurate to pain. So we took those scoring my friends and I had healthy took those grimace scales and then applied AI to them. So in our AI, we're matching veterinary data sets.

[00:00:40] And we found out we were 96% accurate to what the cat was feeling on its face with computer vision. Welcome to The Pet Care Report podcast by Pet Summits. Here's your natural cat health care

[00:01:01] host, Dr. Megan Barrett. Welcome back everybody. Thanks so much for joining us once again on The Pet Care Report. Please join us in welcoming our special guest today, Susan Grennevel. She is a serial entrepreneur with the 25 year track record in the animal care and technology sectors.

[00:01:19] Susan has spearheaded commercialization initiatives for major global companies in animal health and agriculture co-founded the award-winning North American marketing agency WS and launched Sylvester.ai, a not-for-profit globally recognized in animal health. In 2023, she was honored as a top

[00:01:40] five finalist for entrepreneur of the year for women in AI across North America, underscoring her impact and dedication to innovative solutions in animal care. Thank you so much for joining us today, Susan. My pleasure. That was a mouthful. That's okay. You're

[00:02:00] incredible and I'm so excited to highlight a few of your items from your background. So today we're going to be talking about some very cool topics that we don't normally get to talk

[00:02:11] about on this show. So it's going to be fantastic to have Susan explaining some of these things about AI and Pet Care to us. So Susan, you've had a fascinating journey, merging technology

[00:02:24] with animal care. Can you share with us what initially drew you to focus on pets and what inspired you to integrate artificial intelligence into this deal? Hi, you bet and thank you Megan for

[00:02:35] this opportunity. My journey started actually, I grew up in a ranch in Canada in Alberta and I have an animal science degree and then I did some genetic evaluation work actually in livestock. And along the way I found that there was marketing, you know, in terms of communication

[00:02:56] and talking about scientific things with late people and started my own marketing agency working with multinationals in pet food and firma and then spent 20 years helping bring products to market through pharmaceutical companies. And along the way I could see that cats really were getting

[00:03:18] kind of short shifted in that we didn't see as many cats going to the veterinarian. There weren't as many products available for cats and then you know, as a marketing group, our budgets were

[00:03:29] that robust to actually even move the dial for cats. And so there was a real hole, a real disconnect because we could see that people love their cats. There's no question. But we just, you know,

[00:03:42] we weren't really doing what we could be and there was a lot of cats suffering. So actually about 10 years ago I debated enough for profit with field-line specialists here in Canada called Cat Healthy

[00:03:53] and we created the first of their kind preventive care protocols for cats to try and help people understand the needs of cats and not just cat owners or cat caregivers but even veterinarians because

[00:04:06] veterinarians as you know, going to school, how much time is spent in feline care is minimal. And recent study actually have also shown us that veterinarians actually don't always enjoy seeing a cat versus a dog because cats don't believe that they like the experience. So recent survey

[00:04:29] I just heard last week was only 5% of veterinarians really believe that cats are having a good time at the clinic. Whereas there's some dogs actually really enjoy it and you're getting not validation as a veterinarian. So there's a real disconnect for cats less than half of them actually

[00:04:45] see a veterinarian on a regular basis compared to over 80% of dogs. And so when we were doing protocols I thought okay now we've got tools and we can educate people about getting them in a cat

[00:04:57] carrier and then I realized it's because they hide their pain that we don't even know they need to go. So working with farm or products I was actually working with pain management products for cats

[00:05:10] and I came across a scoring tool and there's multiple versions of a grimest scale where cats will be their pain in their face like humans. They grimace and it's highly accurate to pain.

[00:05:24] So we took those scoring my friends and I had healthy took those those grimest scales and then applied AI to them. So in our AI we're matching veterinary data sets and we found out we were 96%

[00:05:40] accurate to what the cat was feeling on its face with computer vision. And so we went ahead and incorporated self-esture and then created actually a tool that people could download and take a picture

[00:05:55] of their cats face on the phone and give them an immediate assessment. And so that's actually what we're commercializing today is a technology on the phone and in early in early days we had

[00:06:09] 54,000 downloads in a week of this technology and we're scaling now overly with that. Yeah people well we really are invested in wanting to do what's right you know collectively for the species but

[00:06:23] still note we just know one of the tools so we thought well let's let's see if the cat can help us help them. Yeah it's just so amazing like you know they have all this new technology nowadays for

[00:06:33] human facial recognition and you know they're using it for marketing and stuff like that but to have it be used for a cat and to help recognize pain it just like to me it is one of the most amazing

[00:06:45] applications of technology that I've heard of so I applaud you. Oh thank you it's you know it gives me goosebumps because there's so many people that see it the same way that we all want to do what's right

[00:06:58] and what we're actually doing in the company is quite challenging and that we are pioneering something that's never been done before at the same time as we're scaling it. So we're seeing now like in the veterinary community more validation about AI and paying recognition on the cat's

[00:07:13] face and then we're also selling it through clinics to pet owners and um people that are using at the feedbacks been incredible in terms of helping these cats in their quality of life so it's

[00:07:27] it's really really rewarding journey and there's so many people that want this to be successful but it's really fearing us forward. Yeah I mean it's kind of a window into the cats

[00:07:38] soul if you will and I think we all want to understand our cats more but they're so mysterious and it can be hard to interpret their emotions sometimes. So having a more objective way to measure that

[00:07:51] and a tool that has the data and the science behind it so we can trust those results I think it would you know also just open a whole world of awareness so that people are realizing you know

[00:08:03] there's so much more to cat health than just taking them to vet for their shots once a year. You know we work with a lot of pain experts and pain specialists and

[00:08:12] with their excited about with the technology is you know a lot of what's been done to date in medication for cats as being uh molecule based right like we know that a product is effective or a

[00:08:26] person decides it's effective on you know killing a type of bug but we don't really see a lot of outcome-based products like that we don't know their outcome based because the cat host home

[00:08:38] and the problem is a lot of those cats don't come back so we don't really know we're assuming of their effectiveness but we're not really seeing the full outcome of really good medicine

[00:08:49] for cats and so that's the other thing that we're really bringing with us tech and so when we talk about AI and the opportunities in AI you know we're seeing incremental things that are better

[00:09:00] with AI but I think what we're doing is fundamentally changing how we think about care in that it's a circle it's not linear it's not problem solution it's it's the lifetime of the cat because we're

[00:09:13] following the cat at home so our technology is also an API meaning that it embeds in other people's platforms so whether it's a wearable collar or let's say you have a smart litter box

[00:09:26] or a smart feeder anything that has the ability to have a camera has the ability to use our technology and you know then we're really one of the sources of truth of that animal beyond just the medical

[00:09:40] record that we see in a clinic or and a dolly with a pet owner's to hang it home. Wow yeah all that is so cool and so inspiring just to think of all the new ways that we could be using the

[00:09:51] technology to help our animals and you know get a window into what they're feeling instead of just you know are subjective human observations. Yeah and we're you know we're starting with pain and today we're coaching our technology and happy and happy and we're doing that on purpose

[00:10:11] because we don't want to alarm people and you know like one picture is an acute moment in time and I mean you know as I as I talked to it Dr. Harris a DVM you understand this intrinsically

[00:10:24] but it's a moment in time so what we say is you know one unhappy picture doesn't mean the cats in pain but it's that piece of mind that let's say you're in a clinic you know dental procedure right

[00:10:37] in your wondering right and you think it's likely painful this is like a validation point the same thing that we're seeing with cat owners if the cat is you're needing outside of the

[00:10:47] litter box this is another like just another touch point and we'll say you know if you see a multiple you know multiple days of a bad of a bad day for it kind of it's likely there could be something going on

[00:11:01] so it's probably wise to involve your veterinarian or in some cases the veterinarians are are recommending it after procedure and people can take pictures on their clinic can actually see the assessment as the same times the pet owner so it's really facilitating that collaborative

[00:11:18] care approach as well so it's it's just really profoundly exciting but it's not without challenge that's for sure so do you think that your focus will remain on cats more than dogs yeah I get this

[00:11:33] question like everywhere and the thing with cats is there are 10,000 years less domesticated than as you know and so they're not reading us they're not as intuitive as a dog is to how the human is feeling so generally speaking this is why we believe that the

[00:11:53] the grim of scale is so accurate is they're not changing how they feel based on the camera in front of them generally and also they're mostly mostly looking the same right in terms of they're mostly

[00:12:08] you know short here domestic tab and we know we've got fringe breeds but they're generally lipos and more dogs as you know there's every combination of every kind of facial feature under the sun but also actually a veterinarian was telling me there's a thing called a placebo effect

[00:12:25] in dogs where if you smell it a dog they'll try to smell back or even if you have a a senior dog that's highly athletic if you say hey it's time to go for a walk they're going to give it

[00:12:36] their all to try and match what the human wants to do and so getting a good reading on pain is going to take a lot more data points than just the face and so full body makes sense in terms of

[00:12:49] assessing dog but it's it's a lot better posture yeah it's a lot complicated with thought you know there are other species though where the grim is is highly accurate and those are whether it's spirits nice even equine actually and again these animals are less domesticated

[00:13:11] that's a dog you know versus dog so if it was truly just grimace we'd probably go to those species first that being said there's all these data sets that are available and becoming more available

[00:13:25] and people are really working actively in this space not just us to try and get these signs taking a subjective validation like a visual and really to your point you'd mentioned earlier making it more accurate the machine is going to be more accurate because it's it's flattening

[00:13:43] everybody's bias where right now even between veterinarians you know your assessment of pain versus another person's assessment or an assessment would be would be different so it's perfect it's a perfect use case for machine learning I agree yeah just fantastic so what are some of the challenges that

[00:14:05] you've faced using AI and pet care oh boy um probably the biggest challenge is is what everyone would say in AI is um deficits labeled datasets we're working with veterinarians and with pet caregivers for labeled datasets so cats with diagnosed conditions and the proper data coming in because

[00:14:30] really is good as the data being fed to the machine so that's one of the challenges I think that's probably the biggest challenge of all AI quite frankly even if you think um open AI

[00:14:42] or the generative chat to be tea um you know the thing that with AI is it will get more accurate with the more data it gets which is the opposite of what we do in medicine from a science

[00:14:55] molecule based point of view where we expect it to be perfect and then we put it into the wild and what we're doing is we're putting something into the wild and knowing it will only get better

[00:15:06] with more data coming in so it's very you know challenging right for people to get their head around like the difference in approach um which then leads me to you know AI I'm to be honest we're not

[00:15:19] getting a lot of pushback from veterinarians um if anything actually we were seeing a really high level of curiosity and I think COVID really helped you know us all kind of just though

[00:15:32] you know what could what could be possibly happening in the world like any things possible now so that's not the child but incorporating into standard care or or really thinking past like

[00:15:45] her protocols I think is always going to be a challenge right because it's we're doing something new yeah I think we're all trying to figure out where AI and these language based models will

[00:15:55] fit into the veterinary field in particular you know it's interesting because uh the one thing I think it can't replace is the hands-on piece of what veterinarians veterinary staff is like animals in particular you know they can't type in their symptoms like a human could

[00:16:14] they wind up to a little um Dr. Robot Kiaskin the future and got a robot to die to some but it is interesting yeah I think as veterinarians we're open to all the help we can get with

[00:16:27] understanding these animals and what's going on in their brains and their bodies because we just want to help them so much and it's such a mystery and detector work sometimes to figure out

[00:16:37] why they're sick and so it's nice to have new tools that are being created yeah it's true you know the large length so we're not a large line which model right like we're truly machine learning

[00:16:49] you know and and that is because we're not we're not throwing data in that's not already validated by veterinarians so it's like a curated we're very much a curated approach we're doing um because uh we want to control the variables to be as accurate as possible

[00:17:11] that being said that large language models I think are going to be hugely helpful for veterinarians and we're always going to need expert human and sadly we're not going to have enough veterinarians

[00:17:24] for the demand for pets especially we're going to run out of people to do the work that's needed if you think that less than half of cats today see a veterinarian on a regular basis for preventive care

[00:17:39] I just heard stats again in this past week where um I think by 2050 we're going to be so so overwhelmed with pet care and lack of veterinarians that I know that many groups are trying to figure out

[00:17:55] different ways to increase the level of care without a veterinarian status or like a higher lift in technician education or something so we're going to need all the tools we can get quite frankly

[00:18:07] yeah I couldn't agree more there's a huge shortage you know and the veterinary staff but then also just um you know the availability of credible information because there's so much on the internet

[00:18:19] internet nowadays and I think that um it's great pet owners really need to be educating themselves and in that holistic realm too it's even more so so um recognizing pain is a big factor in

[00:18:34] understanding you know how your pets are doing. Mm-hmm. I think pain is um the way we look at it is pain is the top of the decision tree so that is the motivation rate like I mean um you might see

[00:18:46] like an animal that's not eating or like as I know a caregiver at home I may see my animals not eating but I'm going to kind of ride it out you know what I mean like I'm not going to I'm not going to be sure

[00:18:56] when is the right time or do it does that animal need human help um but when we see pain and we recognize what pain looks like then that is a tipping point you know as a human we go and get

[00:19:09] an aloe vera tylonal or what is the what is the pet going to be doing at this juncture or like even in decline rate so um that's also what's so exciting about what we're doing and you know pain is an

[00:19:23] emotion rate so what else you know we fed cats on our tech that um they take up you know at the user will take a picture before the animals fed and they will show up as unhappy

[00:19:37] so now it's like oh these are sentient creatures we all kind of know this but we're just just getting started in terms of what are we really uncovering about yeah their life experiences

[00:19:52] so complex and it's not just pain or lack of pain there's also other sensations in the body like nausea and excitement and you know all you're and different all the different spectrum of emotions

[00:20:04] at animals feel too so it's pretty much this guy's a limit with how far we can take this so it's so incredible you're breaking into this and I'm sure everyone's as excited as I am to learn

[00:20:17] about it yeah it's good right but we also need to make sure that people are comfortable that it's validated as much as we can validate at this juncture right obviously the technology needs to be

[00:20:30] and there are groups that are doing research in this area and we see that as a good thing right in terms of if we were the only groups thinking about this then you know you're kind of the crazy one

[00:20:43] but when we see others that are also kind of doubling down in computer vision then we know that this is this is gonna be something really valuable in our early days from a commercial point of view

[00:20:55] we actually applied for early patent protection because once we saw how accurate what it was in our data sets we went and ran about to IP protection so we've applied for full patent for a few nine classification for pain visually in North America and Europe and actually in

[00:21:19] significant because we're selling it then so we're like the more people into it now the better we just spoke at Cornell and they had an AI and veterinary tech conference a couple of weeks ago

[00:21:34] and we were lucky enough to speak there as well the team the my CTO actually spoke at that so yeah I mean next year this time I you know I think we might understand a little bit about

[00:21:48] cats in chronic pain and what that might look like I think we might know a little bit more about specific disease state and pain and what that might look like does it look different different

[00:21:59] types of pain so there's just so many it's actually one of our biggest challenges is narrowing focus because there's quite a way to think about it too. You can investigate

[00:22:13] woohoo yeah it's a good problem to have when it comes to research I think. Yeah yeah yeah and we are too yeah to that actually we are looking for a veterinarians or veterinary groups that would be

[00:22:24] interested in and participating with us we do have people that are already involved in some of our label data engagement and then we're also talking with institutional partners from universities that are interested in AI and veterinary care together so if there's people interested

[00:22:44] in coming on the journey or letting more of my emails in my name and we'd really really lip to hear from you. Yeah that's a very amazing opportunity so hopefully if there are any

[00:22:57] vet listening and you want to get involved we'll give you all the info for contact these Susan so that we can all work on this together. Do you have any other info like sounds like

[00:23:08] you're on the inside of this industry and we're guys for just that this big conference. Were there any other notable applications of AI that people may not know about that are going to be coming out soon for the veterinary. And you're probably finding this too.

[00:23:25] Everybody's talking about AI and everyone's saying what about AI and I think it's kind of become a bit of a buzz word so I'm looking at it from a different point of view. I'm not

[00:23:38] looking at it from any eye point of view. I'm looking at it from the problem that solves and so what excites me about problems that are being solved and of course there's a bunch

[00:23:49] of work that's being done like in clinics for efficiency you know like you know digitization of records and whatnot. There's a ton in food animal on the large animal side like there's polices now that they're they're testing the unautomal well ingest and it's actually tracking

[00:24:09] like temperature and heart rate and super high yeah super cool in terms of managing the animal in a different way so I'm looking at it more like how big is the problem and does this

[00:24:23] solve the problem versus AI for the sake of AI because we know on the face of it AI supposed to make things more efficient but it's actually not just plug and play with AI it's just

[00:24:35] so new and so when people lead with AI you know you need to really get under the hood and kind of though okay is this a problem that really is well solved by AI where are obviously it's the AI that's

[00:24:52] making this possible um so I think on the on the on the large animal I'm seeing a lot of that on the companion side and seeing a lot of like smart feeder technology there's some really cool

[00:25:08] epigenetics that's coming so you know environment and genetics and how that plays which is fascinating I think um um oncology like cancer protection like early preventive detection I think there's some really fascinating work that's being done in the genetics that I think

[00:25:27] I think is pretty yeah hopefully there will be lots of ways that we can leverage all the new technology to help our pets live longer lives and healthier of our comfortable lives so that

[00:25:37] we can enjoy them for longer so it's always too short when it comes to our pets I know right and I mean there's all these rabbit holes like it's like most things in life rate until there's a problem

[00:25:47] you don't really choose to learn about it like you know on the face of everything it seems great and then you know when you get it a pet um invariably we'll be dealing with at some point disease or

[00:25:59] a problem or end of life like that just comes that just comes with the territory and so I think the more information that's available the better for people you know most pet owners

[00:26:14] rate or millennial or gents you know and what we're seeing rate is it has to be a media and people really want to know and they want to be part of the collaborative nature so I think there's just

[00:26:26] a really huge acceleration in terms of um knowledge that people are bringing into your point like ballistic care and all the different things to bear it's really a team of pro-trial in these animals so how can they not be having a better life you know when there's

[00:26:45] so many people that are kind of on it versus before it was really I don't want to say top down but it was just so siloed right I mean how can it not be better so I'm sure some of our

[00:26:58] listeners are wondering what actions they can take to get involved and take advantage of some of the work that you've done so can you share with us where they should go and find you in the

[00:27:09] work that you've done on the internet? Yeah very good so you know our website is a good first place of siloedaster.ai and then they can reach out to myself or hello it siloedaster.ai

[00:27:22] and we are not offering the technology direct to pet owners right now so they need to go through clinic so if you're a veterinary clinic we'd love to talk to you about how how we set that up

[00:27:37] and if you are interested talk to your veterinarian and how to run reach out and then we can start that process. The reason we're not going direct to the consumer or the cat owner is

[00:27:50] we really want a veterinarian involved because we're actually solving a really big challenge for cats and so if you have a cat that you think may be in pain you know the first stop should always

[00:28:02] be a veterinarian not our tech and then you know we're we're in a copilot situation with veterinarians right now so we really want to have that that source and that expert with us to help your

[00:28:15] cat on its journey and I might add if you have an older cat um you know they're going to be showing signs of aging and we know that some are speaking with lack of love which is a group

[00:28:30] I'm sure you're familiar with that do you have for cats and they were staying in hospital yeah and hospital that's right and they were saying that almost all of the cats that are u-thinized that they see have not been to a veterinarian in the year previous

[00:28:46] which means they're not getting any kind of intervention there is going to be pain near end of life we know you know unless there's a you know an accident or a horrific incident

[00:28:59] and there might be things to extend the longevity of that animal as we can get them into proper care so I'm a huge fan of the veterinary community and and what can be done to help these cats if we

[00:29:12] know better yeah I love their collaborative approach I think it will lead to a lot of success with getting the veterinarians on board too yeah for sure do you have one last tip for pet owners to go away

[00:29:25] today oh well you know congratulations and Kudos and the fact that you've chosen to have an animal in your life means that that animal is already having a higher game life than they did

[00:29:39] with previous to you and I think that's fantastic I would really really recommend people be proactive in their care and I know we try to do that in many ways but you know think about the care

[00:29:52] and what you're getting from veterinarians or healthcare professionals and really make that a talk priority versus maybe that preemptive thing in the middle like through the pet store you know you know if you've to pick between your bow ties or the scratching post and going to a veterinary

[00:30:11] and then you haven't seen one and a few years go to the bed because that's extending the life much faster than you know the final charge key thing which I know it sounds like common sense

[00:30:21] but sometimes you just don't want to deal with the things that maybe really can be easily treated I think yeah that's a absolutely amazing tip and I would agree to you know if you're worried

[00:30:31] about taking your cat to the vet maybe try to find a vet that does house calls I do those for my client because cats sometimes do up at her home and also look for fear free practices that have

[00:30:43] things in place so that it's a less stressful visit for the cat and they have protocols in ways set up so that it's not going to be as scary to come in so tip for myself as well yeah you know

[00:30:55] um Dr. Bear what a great that's a really great point right there's cat friendly clinics there's fear free clinics there's feeling specialist cat only clinics and I think we're gonna see more of them

[00:31:11] and if you have a cat I would highly recommend really assessing out the clinics that really are friendly towards cats it'll really make it it'll make it'll make your experience really really

[00:31:26] profound amazing well thank you Susan so much for your time I've learned so much and just had such an positive experience chatting with you this is so inspiring and I know that we're all excited

[00:31:37] for the things that are to come and all definitely be reaching out to you about getting this integration for my patients as well excellent excellent my pleasure and thank you I know you're busy

[00:31:48] you're busy too so hold some yes you're welcome we'll talk to you next time do it thank you thank you