Artificial intelligence and automation are transforming both the scale of animal use and the monitoring of welfare outcomes. Understanding these developments positions welfare advocates for maximum impact.
AI and automation create both welfare risks and welfare opportunities. Automated systems that remove human oversight may fail to detect welfare problems that attentive humans would notice, while AI welfare monitoring can detect problems at scales and consistency impossible for human inspection. The most important AI development for long-term farm animal welfare may be in alternative protein technology: if AI accelerates the development of affordable cultivated meat and precision fermentation, it could transform the welfare landscape for billions of animals.