AI is Already Changing Your Life for the Better, Why Not Your Dental Group?

Change is inevitable. It happens whether we’re ready or not, and nowhere is this more evident than in technology. As dental professionals, we often get comfortable doing things the same way, day after day, year after year. But staying in that comfort zone is a sure way to fall behind. In September 2024, I had the opportunity to speak on a panel at the HR for Health DSO Leadership Summit about a game-changer for dental marketing (and operations)—artificial intelligence (AI). If you’re not already using AI in your practice, you’re making a huge mistake.

Here’s the brutal truth—technology doesn’t care about your feelings. Whether you’re ready or not, it’s going to keep advancing. It’s like when Uber Eats delivers your favorite food to your door in under 30 minutes. You love it. But when it is technology that you do not understand some suddenly feel threatened and demonize it. Here’s a wake-up call: AI is not waiting for you to feel comfortable. And if you want to stay ahead of the competition, you can’t afford to wait either.

But here’s the good news: AI can make your life easier. It can make your marketing more efficient, your operations smoother, and your team members happier. And best of all—it can make your practice more profitable. AI is here, and if you want to stay competitive in the dental industry, you need to not only get used to it but start using it every day.

AI in Action: Marketing and Operations

Let’s break it down: how can AI revolutionize both your marketing efforts and operations? At Peak Dental Services, we’ve seen firsthand how tools like Pearl AI have transformed our approach to patient care, operations, and recruitment. It enhances diagnostic accuracy by analyzing x-rays and detecting dental issues with over 30% greater precision, ensuring patients receive the highest standard of care. This heightened accuracy not only significantly improves patient outcomes, leading to earlier and more effective treatments, but also attracts top dentists who are eager to work with a group utilizing the latest technology to deliver exceptional care

In our call center, we’ve used AI to connect a potential patient filling out a website form to a live agent within 60 seconds. That’s a game-changer for new patient acquisition. AI also listens to calls, summarizes conversations, and determines—relatively accurately—whether a call is a true new patient opportunity. It does this in real time, allowing us to coach our call center and front desk team members and make adjustments that immediately improve scheduling rates. This kind of proactive approach to patient acquisition simply wasn’t possible before.

Now let’s talk marketing, tools like ChatGPT or Google Gemini are reshaping how dental groups approach marketing. These tools can draft blogs, write web pages, create social media content, and even produce flyers. Think about how much time (and budget) your marketing team spends creating content, and then imagine how much time and money is saved with AI. Not only does AI do it faster, but it can do it at scale—producing more content, more frequently.

Let’s take SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as an example. We started using AI-powered SEO tools to manage our organic search efforts, and the results have been astonishing. In fact, AI outperformed our previous SEO vendor—and at a fraction of the cost. The money we saved? We repurposed it into other marketing initiatives, like paid search and social media advertising, that drive new patient leads. By reallocating funds this way, we were able to increase our overall lead volume without increasing our budget. That will make most CFOs happy.

We’re also leveraging AI to produce video content quickly and cheaply—more videos, no travel, no sloppy smartphone videos, at a fraction of the cost. These are videos we can push to our Website, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, maximizing our reach. The result? A much broader reach for a fraction of the cost, and a marketing strategy that’s nimble enough to pivot – we can “shoot” and put a video on our office website same day.

In short, AI allows us to do more with less, and if you’re not tapping into its potential, you’re leaving money on the table.

How Do You Get Your Team to Use AI? Use it Daily

How can you get your team to embrace AI? AI is a intelligence tool, so you need to start by integrating it into their (and your) daily tasks, such as conducting research, drafting blogs, analyzing data, and searching for anything imaginable. There’s no room for “kid gloves”—if you don’t use it, your competition will, and they’ll leave you behind. If you’re in marketing, you should be using AI yourself, researching solutions, and discussing potential opportunities with trusted marketers and vendors to identify how AI can benefit your team. Never stop learning.

If today is your first day using AI tools, start by asking, ‘Today is my first day using ChatGPT. What are some tips or best practices to help me learn how to use it effectively moving forward?

Remember Late 1990s Internet? That’s What AI Feels Like Now

If you’re still not convinced, think back to the 1990s when the internet was new. Many dental offices and businesses believed they didn’t need a website or need to advertise online. They dismissed the web as a fad making statements like people will always want to come into my store to touch and feel the products. It sounds absurd now, doesn’t it? Well, that’s exactly how not using AI in your dental practice will feel soon enough. AI isn’t a fad. It’s here, it’s here to stay and it will grow.

Fear sells, but it’s also a dangerous demotivator. That BS mentality of “we’ve always done it this way” is going to leave you in the dust. The fear of AI taking away jobs (or that Skynet will take over the world) is just like the fear people had when electricity was first introduced. People thought it was unnatural, would burn down society, and take away jobs. What did electricity actually do? It ended up making life easier and creating new jobs.

That is my historical benchmark, you can validate it by Googling it…or better yet ChatGPT-ing it.

AI is no different. Yes, it may shift and evolve some jobs, but that’s always been true with any technological advancement. New roles will be created. And if you’re smart about how you implement AI in your dental group, you’ll see that it doesn’t replace human ingenuity; it amplifies it.

AI Will Make You Better

One concern I often hear from marketers is will I be replaced, “What about content creators? What about digital marketers? Won’t AI like ChatGPT take their jobs?” My response is simple: AI doesn’t replace creativity, it enhances it. Stop being lazy, learn and evolve with it. For example, you can ask AI to analyze dental offices in a particular zip code that aren’t open on Fridays or Saturdays, compare that to insurance availability, and draft a blog about how your office accommodates Fridays, accepts X insurance, offers same-day appointments and advanced treatments that others don’t – like energy based aesthetics to get rid of wrinkles and fine lines, treat the entire face not just the smile.

AI can handle certain tasks—but you still need to use the talents God blessed you with and direct AI and guide it to get the best results. And if you leverage AI correctly, your dental group marketing and other teams can become more effective, not redundant. They can focus on higher-level strategy and creativity while letting AI handle the heavy lifting.

Use AI to Improve Your Practice, Not Fear It

Let’s face it: AI is impacting every industry, and dentistry is no exception. The sooner you embrace it, the better positioned your dental group will be for future success. If you’re still on the fence, let me ask you this: would you rather be the practice that stays stuck in its old ways like running Yellow Page and MySpace ads, or the one that evolves, grows, and dominates?

Here’s the reality—AI is transforming marketing, streamlining operations, and boosting profitability for dental practices. It’s enhancing scheduling, improving real-time patient engagement, and AI solutions are currently being built that will track and market from the top of the funnel to the bottom.

As technology evolves, Generation Z is already using TikTok for search, and Generation Alpha is turning to AI tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini to shop and find businesses. In the next 4 to 10 years, the way we use Google search will be like the YellowPages—soon, people won’t be using it. Even Google recognizes this, which is why they launched Google Gemini AI. How consumers search for your business will continue to change and involve AI, and eventually, it may involve blockchain and non-fungible tokens (NFTs)—but that’s a topic for another day.

AI can make your business more profitable and give you and your team more time to spend with family. Who does not want that?

So, stop fearing AI, AI won’t wait for you to get comfortable—but if you embrace it now, your dental practice or group will reap the rewards.

Key Takeaways for Tips:

Embrace AI or fall behind: AI is rapidly transforming industries, including dentistry. Staying resistant to AI advancements is akin to falling behind—similar to how businesses once resisted adopting the internet. Those who don’t adapt will be left in the dust.
Boost efficiency and cut costs: AI can automates content creation, improves SEO, and enhances patient acquisition processes, allowing practices to do more with less. These are just some examples that reduce costs and reallocates resources to generate more leads and revenue.
Enhance patient care and attraction: AI improves diagnostic accuracy and patient engagement, leading to better outcomes and attracting top talent. Practices using AI provide higher-quality care, which sets them apart from competitors.
Future-proof your practice: The way consumers search for businesses is changing with AI. Dental practices that embrace AI now will be well-positioned for future shifts in technology and patient behavior.

For more insights or inquiries on marketing,
please feel free to reach out to me at
ryantorresan@gmail.com – happy to help.

Written by Ryan Torresan. Ryan is considered one of the leading marketing minds in dental and healthcare on what’s next in marketing, relevance, marketing that actually impacts DSOs and can be measured. With more than 10 years of DSO experience, Ryan is a marketing executive who steered a very successful career to reach the executive level at three of the largest dental support organizations (DSOs) in the US.

During his tenures, he earned promotions and awards after tremendous success in the digital marketing and social media space. He is also known to have transformed event, CRM and content marketing into lead generation. He has repositioned brands, navigated crisis public relations and driven incremental sales through office designs. He played a crucial role on executive teams that sold DSOs to private equity firms.