AAFCO Unveils AI Advancement Tool To Improve Animal Feed Safety

The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) has announced the official launch of the AAFCO Virtual Assistant, an Agentic AI system built on SWARM Engineering’s decision intelligence platform to modernize and streamline access to regulatory information for the animal food industry. By embedding governed AI within AAFCO’s trusted regulatory framework, the AAFCO Virtual Assistant enables regulators, manufacturers, and industry stakeholders to navigate ingredient definitions, labeling requirements, and safety standards with greater speed and consistency.

The AAFCO Virtual Assistant is a secure, domain-specific AI agent designed to provide instant and accurate regulatory guidance. Drawing exclusively from AAFCO-verified source materials, including its globally recognized comprehensive list of approved feed ingredients – the Official Publication, this tool empowers users to make forward-thinking decisions with confidence, clarity and compliance.

“Building on more than 115 years of scientific standards, our organization is embracing an AI-driven approach to transform the complex regulatory landscape. The AAFCO Virtual Assistant positions the animal and pet food industry to anticipate challenges, drive innovation and accelerate growth – all while maintaining the highest standards of compliance,” said Austin Therrell, executive director of AAFCO. “With SWARM’s support, industry partners, regulators, and manufacturers worldwide can now proactively navigate ingredient definitions, labeling requirements, and safety standards more efficiently to advance the health and wellbeing of people and animals.”

SWARM Engineering’s AI decision intelligence platform is purpose-built for complex and regulated environments. Unlike general-purpose AI tools, the AAFCO Virtual Assistant operates within a controlled regulatory corpus and is architected to ensure responses are grounded exclusively in AAFCO-approved materials. SWARM’s platform integrates secure retrieval frameworks, domain-trained reasoning agents, and structured compliance logic to transform static documentation into an interactive decision-support system.

“AAFCO has spent more than a century establishing the scientific and regulatory foundation that protects animal health and strengthens the integrity of the food supply chain,” said Shail Khiyara, chief executive officer of SWARM Engineering. “SWARM’s AVA builds on that foundation. It demonstrates that Agentic AI can operate responsibly within a governed regulatory framework, grounding every response in AAFCO-approved standards. It does not replace expertise. It reinforces it, transforming regulatory complexity into confident, defensible decisions at the moment they matter.”

The AAFCO Virtual Assistant is currently accessible to subscribers of the AAFCO Digital Publication Package, an annual subscription that bundles key AAFCO publications together in a convenient digital format. The digital package offers immediate access to the AI tool, the 2026 Official Publication, Pet Food Labeling Guide, Animal Feed Labeling Guide, and the Online Database of Ingredients.

Read more from AAFCO here.