The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) has launched a virtual assistant powered by artificial intelligence to help pet food and animal feed professionals navigate regulatory requirements, including ingredient definitions, labeling requirements and safety standards.
The AAFCO Virtual Assistant is built on SWARM Engineering's AI decision intelligence platform, which the company says is designed for complex, regulated environments. Unlike general-purpose AI tools, the assistant operates within a controlled regulatory corpus and is designed to limit responses to AAFCO-approved materials.
The platform incorporates secure retrieval frameworks, domain-trained reasoning agents and structured compliance logic to convert static documentation into an interactive decision-support system, said AAFCO.
"Building on more than 115 years of scientific standards, our organization is embracing an AI-driven approach to transform the complex regulatory landscape," 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."
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, noted Shail Khiyara, CEO of SWARM Engineering.
"SWARM's AVA builds on that foundation," Khiyara said. "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 virtual assistant is currently available to subscribers of the AAFCO Digital Publication Package, an annual subscription that includes the 2026 Official Publication, Pet Food Labeling Guide, Animal Feed Labeling Guide and the Online Database of Ingredients. More information is available at aafco.org.
AAFCO also recently issued a request for proposals to identify partners to develop an AI agent designed to evaluate animal feed label compliance with AAFCO model regulations and Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations. The proposed tool would serve as a compliance assistance resource for animal feed labels and marketing claims. The RFP submission deadline is March 19, 2026.
