AI adoption in dental practices: “Wait and see is not a strategy in an exponential world”

Iveta Ramonaite, Dental Tribune International

Thu. 14 May 2026

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Piers Linney, MBE, is a British entrepreneur, former Dragons’ Den investor and business speaker with a background in law, finance and digital technology. He is the co-founder of Implement AI, a company launched in 2023 to help organisations understand and implement artificial intelligence (AI). In this interview with Dental Tribune International, he discusses AI’s rapid, exponential growth and transformative force—far beyond incremental technological changes— and explains why hesitation could leave dental practices behind in management, patient care and market competitiveness.

Piers Linney, MBE, argues that artificial intelligence is reshaping dental practice economics through faster diagnostic workflows, stronger patient communication and better operational insight.

Mr Linney, why is AI fundamentally different from previous technology waves such as digital imaging or CAD/CAM, and how is it already reshaping patient care in dental practices?
AI is fundamentally different because it is not just another technology cycle. It is one of the defining technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and may well mark the last industrial revolution in the traditional sense. The first three industrial revolutions gave us tools, machines, platforms and infrastructure that amplified human effort. AI provides intelligence itself. We now have technology that can increasingly use the tools and platforms we built in earlier eras.

That changes the pace as well as the nature of change. Previous industrial shifts often took decades to work through the economy. With AI, major advances are now happening over months—and may eventually occur over weeks. AI is not just improving individual functions; it is changing the underlying economics of work. First, it disrupts knowledge work and cognitive labour. Then, as robotics becomes more physically capable and adept at navigating the real world, it will impact physical labour too.

In dentistry, AI is not confined to one part of the practice. It supports diagnosis, helps standardise treatment discussions and personalises patient communication. But its impact goes further. Better patient care is not just about what happens in the chair; it is also about rapid responses, clear options, consistent experiences and whether the practice feels organised, responsive and trustworthy. AI is already improving all of these.

From your experience in advising businesses, what specific AI tools or strategies have you seen transform practice management and clinical decision-making in dentistry?
The biggest gains usually come from three areas. The first is front-of-house operations and patient communication. That includes missed calls, out-of-hours enquiries, appointment handling, reminders, follow-up and reactivation of dormant patients. This is where considerable revenue is often lost, not because teams lack skills or dedication, but because there is too much demand and too little capacity. AI can close that gap.

The second is operational visibility and practice management. Most dental businesses have more data than they realise, but fail to turn it into actionable insights. AI can help identify bottlenecks, improve forecasting, reduce no-shows, flag missed opportunities and give management a much clearer picture of what is actually happening across the business.

The third is clinical support. AI is becoming increasingly useful in analysing radiographs and scans, flagging potential issues and supporting more consistent decision-making. It does not replace the clinician, but it can enhance judgement, reduce variability and help communicate findings to patients more clearly. The real shift comes when practices stop viewing AI as a single tool and start seeing it as a layer of support across the entire business.

“There is a well-known line that AI will not replace you, but a competitor using AI might.”

Many dental professionals have adopted a cautious wait and see approach to AI. What makes this mindset not just risky but potentially damaging for their practices?
Wait and see is not a strategy in an exponential world. It sounds prudent but in practice means giving up time, data and learning advantages to competitors. The practices that move first will become faster, leaner, more responsive and more intelligent. They will capture more enquiries, communicate more effectively, make better decisions and convert more patients. Those advantages compound.

This is the point many people miss: AI is not just about cost reduction. It changes the economics of service businesses. If your competitors can add capacity without equivalent payroll, operate with greater consistency and learn from every interaction, they will quickly widen the gap.

There is a well-known line that AI will not replace you, but a competitor using AI might. In dentistry, that is probably the right way to think about it: the risk is not that AI will destroy a good practice overnight. It is that well-run competitors using AI will quietly become more efficient, more attractive to patients and more profitable, while others persuade themselves that waiting is the prudent option.

What concrete steps should dental practice leaders take right now to integrate AI into their operations and stay competitive?
Dental practice leaders should start with business problems, not software. The first step is to identify where value is leaking or friction is building. That might be missed calls, out-of-hours enquiries, low treatment conversion, poor recall follow-through, under-used patient data, administrative bottlenecks or limited insight into day-to-day practice performance. They then need to prioritise use cases that are practical, measurable and commercially meaningful. In most practices, that means starting with communication, scheduling, follow-up, reporting and clearer tracking of enquiries, recalls and treatment uptake instead of trying to do everything at once.

The following point is crucial: AI adoption is not an IT project. It is not a one-off implementation you complete and move on from. It is an ongoing process for as long as you are in business, because AI is becoming part of the operating model itself.

It also differs from traditional human resource planning. Businesses now need to consider where and how they deploy digital workers alongside human teams. These digital workers handle tasks that staff lack time for, cannot scale or shouldn’t prioritise, directly supporting the practice, leadership and individual clinicians.

If you look at AI through this lens, the goal becomes much clearer. Dental practices are augmenting the people they already have in order to grow revenue, increase capacity and improve the patient experience without adding headcount. When AI implementation is approached properly, practices can begin to see measurable value quite quickly.

“AI adoption is not an IT project.”

Leaders also need to move beyond endless pilots. Pilots are useful, but only if they lead to deployment. We are now at the stage where AI can show meaningful and measurable return on investment. The question is no longer whether it works in principle; the question is where it delivers the most value in your business. Leaders need to prepare their data and workflows for use, engage their team and partner with credible experts who grasp both AI and the realities of running a healthcare business. The winners will not be those who talk most about AI, but those who implement it properly and quickly move from experimentation to production.

Looking ahead, how do you see AI evolving to impact commercial strategy for dental clinics across the patient journey, from acquisition to recall?
AI will become part of the commercial operating model of dental businesses, not merely serve as an efficiency tool on the side. On the front end, it will change patient acquisition through better targeting, faster response times, smarter follow-ups and more personalised engagement. Practices will soon excel at understanding which enquiries matter, which channels perform and how to convert interest into treatment.

Inside the practice, AI will increasingly shape affordability discussions, treatment uptake, recall, retention and resource allocation. It will help practices understand not just what is happening, but why it is happening and what to do about it. On the clinical side, AI will continue to improve diagnosis, clinical decision-making and patient communication. Over time, treatment planning will be guided by clearer clinical and patient data, become more consistent and be easier for patients to understand.

We are on an exponential curve. Dental practices do not need to become technology companies, but they cannot afford to stay on the sidelines.

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