AI is already reshaping clinical workflows, content, communication and patient conversion. As its role in dentistry grows, what opportunities are dentists missing and what could waiting mean for their future practice?
Contributors
Dr Manrina Rhode, Cosmetic Dentist and Founder, DRMR, GDC Number: 81187
AI reaches beyond the clinical work
AI has already had a huge impact on Manrina’s professional life. Clinically, she uses AI X-ray readers, while AI technology also plays a role in smile simulations and clear aligner set-ups. Its impact on the operational and communication side of the business has been significant too.
“AI now touches my content creation, my patient acquisition funnels, my team communications and how I run the DRMR Academy,” she says.
“It hasn’t changed how I fit a veneer. It has changed how much of my time goes into everything around the clinical work: marketing, admin, training materials, internal messaging, reporting and schedules.”
Where content starts a chain reaction
For Manrina, content output has seen the most tangible impact, with benefits for both time and patient conversion.
“I can turn a call transcript, a webinar or a rough idea into a finished LinkedIn post, newsletter or ad hook in a fraction of the time it used to take,” she explains.
That increased output has had a direct knock-on effect. Her AI for Dentists webinar alone generated more than 1,200 sign-ups, which, she says, “shows the hunger for this knowledge”.
A discovery call deck she built using AI also led to easier patient conversions for her client co-ordinator.
“So, the true order is that content output drove time saved, and time saved drove conversion.”
The opportunity in the unglamorous work
Despite these possibilities, Manrina believes many dentists are still looking at AI through a predominantly clinical lens.
“Most dentists I speak to think of AI as a clinical tool, such as diagnostics or imaging, or dismiss it as a novelty. What they’re missing is that the biggest immediate win is operational: content, communication and admin.”
This is where some of the most immediate opportunities lie: “That’s the unglamorous stuff that eats a dentist’s week. The reason they miss it is that AI is still marketed to dentistry as a clinical add-on, not as a way to run the business side of a practice, so most haven’t tried using it for marketing, patient communication or training material.”
What falling behind actually looks like
The consequences of waiting, Manrina argues, are likely to emerge gradually.
“It looks like spending your evenings writing social posts and newsletters that a competitor is producing in minutes or spending a fair amount of money for someone to do it for you. It looks like a slower, more manual patient journey when patients now expect instant, personalised responses.”
Manrina sees that difference building over time: “It’s not a dramatic collapse, it’s a growing gap: the practices using AI well are publishing more, responding faster and freeing up time for the clinical and strategic work that actually needs a human. Over a year, that gap becomes very hard to close.”
Taking the conversation further
These themes will be explored further at Dentistry Show London in Excel, where Manrina will consider the practical applications of AI alongside the opportunities and risks for dental professionals. Her session, AI in dentistry: adapt, evolve or get left behind, takes place on Saturday 10 October from 14:15–15:00 in the Keynote Theatre.
Register free of charge here.
