Your next patient may never see your website.

Start with what is measured, not what is claimed. Pew’s analysis used browsing data from 900 U.S. adults and covers Google only 1. Here is the core finding: “Users who encountered an AI summary clicked on a traditional search result link in 8% of all visits. Those who did not encounter an AI summary clicked on a search result nearly twice as often (15% of visits)” 1.

The summary itself does not send much traffic either. “Google users who encountered an AI summary also rarely clicked on a link in the summary itself. This occurred in just 1% of all visits to pages with such a summary” 1.

Now think about how a patient types. Often not “dentist”, but a question. Pew found that “60% of search queries that began with question words such as ‘who,’ ‘what,’ ‘when’ or ‘why’ resulted in an AI summary” 1. The way people naturally phrase a question is the kind of search that tends to get answered instead of clicked.

One more data point, with a caveat. A survey by BrightLocal, a company that sells local-marketing software, polled 1,002 US adults and reported “45% consumers using AI tools for local business recommendations” 3. It is a vendor survey, not independent research, so read the number with that in mind.

So, how do patients find a dentist now? On Google, when an AI summary appears, they click a traditional search result about half as often as when it does not 1. More of the decision happens before anyone reaches your site.

Does your practice show up in those answers? That depends on what the systems can read about you. For Google, we have Google’s own words. For other assistants, such as ChatGPT, I have no equivalent published source to cite here, so I will not guess.

Do you need special AI SEO for your dental website? Google says no. “There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary” 2. And more specifically: “You don’t need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features” 2. If someone is selling you a secret AI optimization package, that is the sentence to read back to them.

Does Google Maps still matter? Google’s own list of fundamentals includes “Checking that your Merchant Center and Business Profile information is up-to-date” 2. So yes: keep your Business Profile current. Google also lists “Making sure that important content is available in textual form” 2. Put the facts that matter in plain text, not only inside images or video.

That is the whole playbook from the source. Accurate listing. Readable facts. No tricks.

People do not always take the AI answer at face value. The same BrightLocal survey, again a vendor survey, reported “most (88%) fact-checking reviews cited by AI tools” 3.

So, what are the best AI tools for dental marketing? I will not name products, and I would be suspicious of anyone who promises visibility in any AI system. When the FTC announced its Operation AI Comply actions, then-Chair Lina M. Khan said: “Using AI tools to trick, mislead, or defraud people is illegal. The FTC’s enforcement actions make clear that there is no AI exemption from the laws on the books” 7. Think by job instead of by brand:

Writing: drafting service-page text, listing descriptions and review replies in plain language, which you then edit for accuracy.

Analytics: reading your own call logs, booking data and listing performance to see where people drop off.

Social: planning and drafting posts, which a human still approves.

Most of your peers are not there yet. The ADA Health Policy Institute found that “Around one in ten dentists use AI for business analytics (10.1%), social media (10.7%)…” 6. That is a gap, not a reason to rush.

Before you add any tool, look at what is already on your booking page. HHS has stated that “disclosures of PHI to tracking technology vendors for marketing purposes, without individuals’ HIPAA-compliant authorizations, would constitute impermissible disclosures” 4. A federal court vacated part of that bulletin in AHA v. Becerra, and the page says so at the top, so check the current text with your counsel before you rely on it 4. Where a vendor touches protected health information, ask whether they sign a business associate agreement. And do not read “HIPAA compliant” on a sales page as a seal: “OCR does not endorse, certify, or recommend specific technology or products” 8.