As the global population rises, the livestock industry faces several challenges. Prominent among them are meeting the growing demand for animal-derived food while reducing environmental impact. Improving animal nutrition and health through AI-designed probiotics is one of the most promising approaches to solving these challenges and improving the sustainability of farming and our food supply.  

For decades, farmers have used probiotics or strains of microbes that enhance gut health. Improving animals' microbiome with these probiotics helps with digestion and immunity, including fending off general and specific threats to their health. Bacteria most commonly used for animal probiotics include Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium, Lactococcus, Bacillus, Streptococcus, as well as yeasts, such as Candida and Saccharomyces. The probiotics are generally added to animal feed, allowing for easy digestion and absorption.

Now, with the advancement of computational capabilities in biology, including AI, scientists are increasingly able to develop probiotics for animals that are more cost-effective, targeted, and effective in addressing specific issues. Machine learning-based systems can analyze reams of data on bacteria, pathogens, animal digestive systems, and characteristics of feed. The data then enables researchers to develop probiotics that can target specific functions – enhancing digestion or reducing gastrointestinal problems such as diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, and colitis. Such targeted probiotics can help with major challenges in farming today, including reducing the reliance on antibiotics and improving digestion to limit the planet-warming gasses that cows and other grass-eating animals emit.

Reducing the use of antibiotics is a major issue in animal husbandry today. Like humans, animals get sick when pathogens invade their systems, and many of those pathogens enter via the food supply. Once established, pathogens spread to other parts of the animal, infecting tissues and organs. Farmers use antibiotics to prevent diseases from spreading among their flocks, even when animals are healthy. Researchers and government officials have in recent years issued warnings on the overuse of animal antibiotics, out of fear that, like with humans, overuse could lead to increased bacterial resistance, which will require even greater doses of antibiotics. In addition, such antibiotics could be passed on to humans – contributing to bacterial resistance in humans, as well. 

Targeted probiotics can help reduce the need for antibiotics in poultry and cattle by regulating gut flora, strengthening the intestinal mucosal barrier function, and thus inhibiting the growth of pathogenic microorganisms and increasing immunity to diseases. They can enhance the immune response in animals by stimulating the production of natural antibodies and stimulating immune cells such as macrophages and T-lymphocytes. Since the European Union banned the routine use of antibiotics for farm animals in 2022, many EU farmers have increased their use of probiotics to keep their livestock healthy. AI systems are helping scientists determine which specific bacteria can replace or reduce antibiotic use. In one study, for example, scientists scoured databases  to discover probiotics that would function in the gut in the same way antibiotics do, thus enabling farmers to reduce the use of antibiotics and prevent their overuse. According to experts, probiotics are likely to be “one of the few remaining tools” to combat bacterial resistance as concern over antibiotic overuse grows.

Another promising use of targeted and AI-designed probiotics is the reduction of methane emissions by ruminants. According to some estimates, livestock are responsible for between 11% and over 30% of global greenhouse gasses, with manure, emission of gasses, and burping the primary source of the as much as 264 pounds of methane released by the average cow  annually. And with demand for meat set to double by 2050, the number of methane-producing cows and other ruminants is set to grow as well. 

Engineered probiotics show a great deal of promise in reducing methane emissions; for example, Dutch giant DSM, which established Europe’s first AI biotech lab, recently, along with its US partner Elanco, received FDA approval for its Bovaer (3-Nitrooxypropanol) “methane mitigator,” a feed ingredient that reduces methane emission by up to 30% or more, according to studies. Meanwhile, Japanese scientists are using machine learning to develop versions of Prevotella microorganisms, which have shown encouraging signs of reducing methane emissions. And Italy’s Carni Sostenibili says it is “close to a breakthrough” in developing probiotic feed additives that could reduce bovine methane emissions by nearly 80%.

Probiotics can also help animals thrive in general, and AI systems can help farmers identify which bacteria could help them and which animals need a microbiome “boost.” US poultry giant Cargill, for example, has developed an AI-based system that uses machine learning to analyze poultry, diseases, and farming methods and offers farmers insights on feed, raising birds, and utilizing probiotics along with limited antibiotics to keep animals healthy. The system’s primary focus is ensuring proper gut health for birds, thus ensuring better health for flocks and enabling farmers to reduce costs on feed, antibiotic use, and loss of birds to disease, as well as improving feed efficiency, leading to better growth rates and weight gain – an essential objective for poultry farmers.

Probiotics are generally introduced to animals via feed, and here, too, AI can help producers design healthier and more effective products by inspecting several parameters and their efficacy, including their cost-effectiveness . Manufacturers have large amounts of data on the ingredients they use, how they are used, and their effects on animals; adding probiotics to the mix to enhance gut health is a logical next step. Studies using machine learning techniques have enabled manufacturers to develop healthier feed, and several manufacturers have already brought such feed to the market. Biovet SA, for example, offers Alquernat Zycox, an intestinal optimizer developed using patented, engineered molecules to enhance the gut of cows, pigs, poultry, and even fish to increase immunity in the digestive tract, “replacing or complementing the use of coccidiostats or anticoccidial vaccines.”

Probiotics, for  disease prevention and enhancement of animal health, is a rapidly growing area of research – and comes just in time for the AI era. Like in many other areas, AI-based techniques can help scientists gather and analyze vast amounts of data on how animals eat, how what they eat affects them, how they get sick, the state of their gut, and how specific probiotics can help in all these areas. Many believe that the future of animal nutrition lies in probiotics – and AI can help develop the probiotics that will make animals healthier. And the humans that depend on the products provided by those animals will be healthier, too.