We surveyed 212 veterinary practices across the US, Canada, and UK on AI adoption, charting time, no-shows, comms, and what vets want next. 107 pages, 38 charts, 14 case studies — written for practitioners, not vendors.
Published April 15, 2026 · 212 respondents · ±5.6 pp at 95% confidence
Practices that finalized SOAPs in under 90 seconds shared one habit: they trusted the model on the first pass and signed without rewriting. Clinics that still hand-edited every line averaged 6:40 — over four minutes longer. The gap isn't model quality; it's confidence calibration.
“We thought the answer was a better model. The answer was learning when to stop fixing it.”
AI scribes lead, AI booking right behind. Where adoption clusters by practice type, size, geography. The 22% who haven't piloted yet — and what they say is blocking them.
Median note time dropped from 11 min to 3:20. Outliers reach 38 sec. What separates the fast clinics: confidence thresholds, sign-off discipline, and not editing what the model wrote.
Per-appointment risk scoring, double-booking heuristics, recall sequencing. Why weather and reply latency outperform demographics as predictors.
The line between "draft for review" and "auto-send" — and why most clinics moved it earlier than they expected. Voicemail transcription as the surprise lever.
Where AI is allowed to act on charges, where it isn't. Sliding-scale plans and AR aging — the workflows that survived the AI rewrite, and the ones that didn't.
Why "show me X" replaced quarterly exports for 64% of practice managers. The questions vets ask first — and the questions they don't want surfaced.
What auditors are asking specifically about AI: training-data lineage, retention, consent. The clauses showing up in BAAs in 2026 that didn't exist in 2024.
Open-text answers from 212 practitioners. The features at the top of the list — and the boundaries they want kept.
Vetch Health, Inc. (2026). The 2026 AI-in-practice report. https://vetch.vet/reports/ai-in-practice-2026
One email, one PDF. No marketing-list opt-in. Tell us your role and clinic so we can prioritize follow-up questions if you have them.
The report describes what's working across 212 clinics. The demo shows you how Vetch specifically gets there. Thirty minutes, real practice data, founders on the call.
