CATEGORY 106 AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE We have just finished the first Australian Dental Consumer Survey, and the AI numbers in the headline are attentiongrabbing, but what do they actually mean for your practice right now? More interesting still: the finding that reveals the biggest opportunity for revenue growth for your practice this month has nothing to do with AI. We surveyed 1,000 Australian adults who decide where their household goes to the dentist. We asked how they found their dentist, what keeps them there, and what makes them quietly stop coming. Here are some of the key findings. The interest in AI is real. The behaviour just hasn’t caught up. Nearly half of Australians, 48.1%, are open to using AI to find a health provider. That is people who have already done it, plus people who say they would try. Among under-35s it is 63.5%, close to two in three. Then it drops away. 1 in 5 have actually used AI to look for a health provider. 1 in 10 have used it to look for a dentist. And just 5.7% found their current dentist that way. That last number is low for a reason. Most Australians picked their dentist years ago, before anyone was using ChatGPT to find anything at all. It tells you what has already happened, not what is coming. The number that points to the future is at the top of the chart, not the bottom. Almost half say they are open to using AI. This is the first wave, so I can’t tell you how fast it will move. But it is not a small number. One source of new patients still beats AI by a long shot. Friends and family is the biggest single answer at 35.6%. Google search and Maps together reach 36.4%. Either way AI sits on 5.7%, more than 6 to 1 behind word of mouth alone. The surprise: word of mouth has not skipped a generation Here is something we didn’t expect. Everyone assumes younger patients arrive through a screen, and plenty do. Half of under-35s found their dentist through Google, against fewer than a third of everyone older. No surprise there. But under-35s were also more likely than older patients to have found their dentist through friends or family; 43.8% against 32.1%. For a lot of them it is not one or the other. Nearly 3 in 4 under-35s found their practice through Google, through someone they know, or both. My guess is that younger people simply have more people to ask. They have bigger circles, more group chats, and far less hesitation about putting the question out there. They are also more likely to be in the market at all, having changed jobs or set up somewhere new. The takeaway: if you assume your younger patients only find you on a screen, you will underrate the ones already sitting in your chair. They are still doing a lot of your marketing for you. Nearly half of Australians are open to using AI to find a health provider. Just 5.7% found their dentist that way. by Richard Quinn, Bright Dental Marketing The AI funnel How people found their current dentist
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