Can AI tell how your pet feels? Dr. Ragen McGowan, Ph.D. — Director of Global Digital & AI Product Development, Nestlé Purina North America.

What if your dog or cat could tell you how they’re feeling?

Today, artificial intelligence may be giving us a new way to listen.

By continuously monitoring things like activity, eating, sleep, elimination and other behaviors, AI can begin to establish what’s normal for an individual animal — and potentially detect subtle changes that humans would never notice.

Dr. Ragen McGowan, Ph.D. is Director of Global Digital & AI Product Development at Nestlé Purina (https://www.purina.com/pet-experts/rm…

Dr. McGowan has spent more than twenty-five years studying animal behavior and cognition, including research ranging from grizzly bears and laying hens to dogs and cats. She earned her Ph.D. in Applied Ethology from Washington State University before conducting postdoctoral research in Sweden focused on measuring positive emotional states in dogs.

Today Dr. McGowan leads Purina’s Global Digital and AI Product Development organization, where her team combines artificial intelligence, connected sensors, behavioral science, physiology and nutrition to better understand what pets are experiencing — and ultimately to give pets something they’ve never truly had before: a voice (https://www.petivity.com/).

Dr. McGowan’s work spans smart pet technologies, digital biomarkers, predictive AI models capable of detecting disease before clinical symptoms appear, and pioneering research into the gut-brain axis and animal emotional health.