Artificial intelligence is increasingly being applied to fields that were once considered outside the scope of traditional computing, including the interpretation of animal sounds. The idea of chatting with your cat about her day or asking your dog why he keeps barking at the neighbor’s fence may soon move beyond cartoon fantasy and into emerging science.

According to the patent, which was filed with China’s National Intellectual Property Administration, the technology is meant to support more meaningful emotional exchanges between humans and their pets. However, this project remains in its early stages. It is not yet clear whether this system will be commercially developed or if it will lead to any significant breakthroughs.

This initiative is not happening in isolation. Other organizations and companies are also experimenting with AI to study animal communication. These efforts reflect a broader trend of using machine learning to analyze patterns in non-human languages. While some of the more visible examples include Google’s attempts to interpret dolphin vocalizations and academic work on cephalopod behavior, several nonprofits are now focused on building scalable systems to better understand how animals communicate.

Many of the apps that currently claim to translate pet sounds into human language are generally considered unreliable. Most rely on generic code and vague algorithms that feed into the public’s desire to understand animal behavior, but they do not have a credible scientific foundation. This has led to skepticism about whether any form of real-time animal translation is possible using current technology.

Still, new initiatives continue to emerge. The Earth Species Project, based in the United States, is attempting to use AI to analyze communication patterns in birds, dolphins, and elephants. Another nonprofit, NatureLM, recently received $17 million in funding to develop animal-specific language models. In parallel, the CETI project is using artificial intelligence to interpret the vocalizations of sperm whales.

In short, using AI to understand animals is an exciting idea, but it is too early to predict the success of these ventures despite the ongoing investment in this field suggests that interest in interspecies communication remains high. The approach here suggests we’re in the early stages of a serious interdisciplinary pursuit. Biologists, linguists, and computer scientists are increasingly collaborating in an effort to treat animal communication as more than instinctual noise. If these projects succeed—or even partly succeed—they could fundamentally alter the way we interact with other species, redefining not only our understanding of animals but also our place among them.