‘The Anthropocenic animal’ conference, organized by the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the French Museum of Natural History (MNHN), was held online in December 2020. The purpose of this meeting was to analyze the evolution of utilitarian and affective relationships between humans and animals in the Anthropocene context. This event brought together a wide variety of fields (biology, ecology, archaeozoology, anthropology, history, ethics...). In this report, we first summarize the speakers’ presentations which were divided into four thematic sessions: 1) domestication, 2) wild animals between defaunation and rewilding, 3) sentinel animals for global and health risks, and 4) ‘knowledgeable’ animals. We then revisit three prominent aspects of the conference: the use of the culture concept at the human-animal interface, the uses of the Anthropocene concept during the conference itself, and its effects on interdisciplinarity between the social and natural sciences. This conference productively addressed human-animal interaction issues through different lenses, approaches and time scales, which led to questioning the anthropocentrism of the Anthropocene concept. However, although carrying different connotations for social and natural scientists, the ‘Anthropocene’ was globally taken for granted, in a Eurocentric view, and its use did not seem decisive in promoting scientific exchanges.