How it works
How AI Pet Matching Works
KCAI narrows thousands of possible comparisons down to a short list worth a human looking at. It does not decide that two animals are the same.
The four steps
Submit a report
Lost or found, plus the basic details of the animal.
Add photographs
Images and identifying marks carry the most weight.
KCAI compares records
Appearance, location, dates and description against compatible reports.
Possible matches surface
A person reviews anything promising before contact is made.
The signals that are compared
A match is built from several independent signals rather than one. When a photograph is unclear the other signals still carry weight; when a description is sparse KCAI does not pretend to more certainty than the evidence supports.
Appearance
Species, breed impression, primary and secondary colours, markings, size, coat length, sex.
Photographs
Visual similarity between submitted images. This measures whether two photographs look alike — not whether they are the same individual animal.
Location
How far apart the two reports are. A cat found three miles away is a very different proposition from one found thirty.
Timeline
Whether the dates make sense together. A pet cannot be found before it went missing.
Written detail
Collars, harnesses, injuries, behaviour and other identifying notes.
Confidence
A sparse report is not penalised for being sparse, but nor is it credited with certainty nobody has.