How PETBIZS uses AI while keeping pet business stories human
Jehanzaib Ahmed is founder and CEO of PETBIZS LLC, a pet industry platform combining a business directory with founder interviews, profiles and editorial content. Ahmed explains which repeatable tasks the business has handed to AI, why interviews and editorial judgment stay human, and how clear, credible content can help pet businesses get found.
Use AI to speed up structured work such as SEO drafts and content audits, but keep interviews, relationships and editorial judgment human. For pet businesses, clear information, credible expertise and direct relationships matter more than chasing every new tool or algorithm.
What’s the quick origin story of your business, and what makes what you do genuinely different from the other options your customers are looking at?
I started PETBIZS because the pet industry is full of capable founders and small brands that are hard to find online. Most pet directories are static lists. A business gets a name, a link, and a category, and then nothing happens. We wanted to build something that tells each business’s story. Today, we receive a lot of listing requests, list them daily, and pair the directory with founder interviews, business profiles, and editorial content. That means a business doesn’t just appear on a list. It gets context, credibility, and content that search engines and real people can trust.
Where does most of your new business come from today, and where do you wish it came from?
Most of it comes from direct outreach and my own network. I handle early conversations and sales personally, and LinkedIn is a big part of that. We started seeing traction in January 2026, and it’s mostly relationship-driven. I’d like more of it to come from inbound: search, referrals from brands we’ve featured, and word of mouth. When a founder reads an interview we published and thinks "I want that for my business," that’s the best lead there is.
What’s one thing you’ve actually handed over to AI in the last year, and one thing you tried it on and went back to doing the human way?
We’ve handed over the repeatable, structured work: first drafts of SEO and answer-engine-optimized copy, metadata, alt text at scale, and framework-driven content audits. It saves a lot of time on work that follows a pattern. What we took back, or never let go of, is the human side. Interviews, relationship-building and the final editorial pass all need real judgment and voice. A founder can tell when they’re talking to someone who’s actually curious about their story, and AI can’t fake that. We use it to speed up production, not to replace the people involved.
Have you noticed a change in how customers find you or what they already know before they reach out? Is anyone arriving through AI assistants like ChatGPT yet?
Yes, the shift is real. Brands are better informed before they contact us. They’ve often researched us, read our interviews and compared us with other options. We’re early in seeing direct traffic from AI assistants like ChatGPT, but it’s a big reason we write with answer-engine optimization in mind: clear structure, real expertise, and trustworthy sourcing, so that when an assistant answers a question about pet businesses, our content is worth citing.
If you were advising someone in your industry on all of this for the next 12 months, what would you tell them to actually do, and what would you tell them to ignore?
Do three things:
Publish content that shows real expertise and a real face behind the business. Make your information clear and consistent everywhere you appear online, so both people and AI systems can understand who you are. Build relationships directly. Your customers and peers matter more than any algorithm.
Ignore the hype. Don’t chase every new tool or tactic, and don’t flood your site with generic AI content. Anything that doesn’t reflect real experience will fade fast. The businesses that win will be the ones that are actually credible and easy to find.
Thank you to Jehanzaib Ahmed and the team at PETBIZS LLC for sharing what actually worked with Leaders Perception readers.
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