Over the past few years, the way Brits buy and sell pets has undergone a seismic shift. Evolving consumer habits, the ease of digital marketplaces and new regulations have combined to drive pet sales largely online.
What once required face-to-face interactions, home visits and personal reassurances has largely moved to digital viewings, videos and direct messages. While this transformation has brought convenience, it has also created new vulnerabilities.
When dealing with something as important as animal welfare, these vulnerabilities must be identified and mitigated. Luckily, AI can play a major role in filling those gaps.
The pet breeding industry has long been plagued by irresponsible actors who exploit the emotional nature of pet purchases. Puppies, in particular, have become increasingly valuable commodities, leading to rising crime rates in this sector, with bad actors engaging in the illegal and unregulated buying and selling of puppies – known as ‘puppy trading’.
When browsing listings of adorable puppies, individuals are understandably drawn in by emotion and may be inclined to move quickly without completing proper checks. What’s more, traditional red flags for animal welfare – such as cramped breeding facilities, stressed mothers or puppies showing signs of illness – don’t translate to the online world. Welfare risks that would be immediately apparent during an in-person visit become invisible or easily missable when filtered through carefully curated images and seller descriptions.
As buyers browse puppy listings online, they should feel confident that each animal has been responsibly bred and cared for. Building that confidence means ensuring information from sellers is clear and complete, and that platforms have the right checks in place to uphold those standards.
The gap between the scale of online rehoming and the ability to monitor it has grown wide, creating opportunities for exploitation that responsible platforms and authorities are now determined to close.
This is where A.I. comes in.
AI is becoming a new kind of watchdog
To be clear, artificial intelligence is not a substitute for human-led safeguarding and security but is emerging as an essential tool in detecting the warning signs that human eyes alone can no longer monitor at scale, empowering buyers to make informed, responsible decisions while connecting them with ethical breeders.
Think of it as a first line of defence that can give buyers a degree of peace of mind. And crucially it’s a line of defence that would be impossible to maintain through human moderation alone. What might take human moderators days or weeks to identify can be flagged by AI systems within minutes of a listing going live.
Image recognition technology now scans thousands of photographs and videos for indicators of welfare concerns. AI systems can identify cropped ears, docked tails, unsuitable living environments and listings where puppies appear without their mothers. It can analyse animals’ physical appearance for signs of stress or neglect, whilst simultaneously assessing environmental factors such as cramped spaces or unsanitary conditions. For example, the UK’s largest pet marketplace, used its advanced AI to flag nearly 9,000 listings in 2025 where puppies were offered without their mothers present, a persistent welfare risk that’s notoriously difficult to police through digital platforms.
Device fingerprinting technology can even prevent problematic users from accessing the platform at the registration phase, based on device ID, IP address and other digital markers. Document verification systems use AI to automatically scan all uploaded documentation, from licence information to microchip data.
What’s more, AI enables an identity verification system for sellers that operates at the same standard many banks use to verify their customers, ensuring that no sales happen anonymously. This means users have peace of mind that they’re communicating with exactly who the seller claims to be.
Benefits beyond detection
It is not only animal welfare standards that are maintained by AI, but also buyers that are protected from fraud. With fraudsters becoming increasingly digitally native and becoming harder to catch, chat analysis systems have added a crucial moderation layer to the communications between buyers and sellers. These systems detect unusual activities and can automatically identify and block fraudulent messages. This is particularly important given the increasing prevalence of phishing attempts, where scammers mimic legitimate platforms and contact users with convincing but fraudulent offers.
AI’s financial fraud detection capabilities allows platforms to identify unusual patterns, such as sudden high-volume transactions or suspicious payment distributions across multiple accounts. These systems work in real time, catching potential fraud before buyers part with their money or fall victim to elaborate scams involving non-existent puppies.
The speed of detection is transformative. Platforms that have implemented AI to streamline and scale pet rehoming can pick out confirmed fraud cases among hundreds of thousands of transactions, a process that would require significant manual effort.
The accountability these systems create is equally important. Sellers are far less likely to attempt trading in unethically bred pets on platforms with such robust measures in place. This means pet rehoming platforms, which have invested heavily in these systems, attract the most responsible breeders.
This creates a positive cycle: responsible breeders want to advertise their litters alongside other responsible breeders, not next to questionable operations. The presence of strong AI moderation effectively drives irresponsible threats away whilst drawing reputable breeders in.
Looking ahead to smarter, kinder systems
Combatting fraud successfully on pet rehoming platforms is an effort that requires continuous development. It cannot be paused or considered complete. Recent advances in AI moderation have shown what’s possible when platforms prioritise animal welfare, systems are now capable of analysing vast numbers of listings and identifying potential welfare concerns before harm occurs. This progress demonstrates what can be achieved when technology and ethics work hand in hand, and it’s time for the whole sector to commit to that standard. Fraudsters and unethical breeders continuously innovate their methods of circumventing detection and the industry must respond with equal determination.
What we’re witnessing is a fundamental shift in how we protect vulnerable animals in an increasingly digital marketplace. As online pet rehoming continues to grow, AI moderation will become not just helpful, but essential. These algorithms are learning, adapting and becoming genuine advocates for animal welfare in spaces where human oversight alone simply cannot reach.
The implications are clear. Buyers should demand platforms that invest in sophisticated AI moderation – it’s a direct investment in animal welfare. Ethical breeders benefit from systems that protect their reputations from association with poor practices. And for the animals themselves, these digital watchdogs represent a powerful new line of defence against exploitation in an online world where they cannot speak for themselves.
The technology exists. The results are proven. Now the entire industry must act.
