Welcome to this week’s Dental AI Weekly — honest analysis of where dental AI is going, from someone building in it.
I started Dental AI Weekly because I kept noticing a gap — the dental AI conversation was happening in DSO boardrooms and trade press, but not with the people who actually see patients. Whether you run your own practice or you’re a clinician inside a group, the enterprise headlines rarely tell you what it actually means for your chair, your workflow, or your patients. So every week I put together what I’m tracking, what I think it means, and what practicing clinicians should actually pay attention to.
This week is a good one to start with.
🚨 Overjet acquired a voice scribe startup in December, launched it globally by late January, and signed the largest dental AI rollout in UK history by February — all in 90 days.
When an imaging company acquires a scribe startup and deploys it globally in 60 days, they’re not shipping a feature. They’re declaring what kind of company they want to be. Overjet is building a full-stack platform — and it happened faster than almost anyone in the industry noticed.
What I’m tracking this week:
- Overjet’s 90-day pivot: The DentalBee acquisition, the global Voice launch, the mydentist UK deal, and a 216-location US rollout with North American Dental Group — all sequenced in a single quarter. The week of the global launch, Vision Dental Partners named Overjet their exclusive AI partner. That’s not coincidence. The roadmap was planned before the deal closed.
- Pearl is moving too: Pearl just won a major enterprise contract with PDS Health for radiologic review across their entire network. Two of the biggest dental AI players simultaneously locking up large groups. The enterprise end of the market is getting cornered.
- Nobody is talking about accuracy: As Overjet Voice and Bola AI push mass adoption, the accuracy conversation is conspicuously absent. AI-generated notes with wrong tooth numbers or missed allergy entries create real liability. The rush to market hasn’t been matched by transparency about where these tools fail.
- The signal hiding in the noise: On Reddit’s r/Dentistry this week — zero AI discussions. Not one thread. The entire dental AI conversation is happening in DSO boardrooms — not with the 180,000 individual clinicians delivering care every day.
Here’s what I think is actually happening.
Overjet, Pearl, and the enterprise players are smart. They’ve identified where the money moves fastest: large groups, single procurement decision, rapid rollout across hundreds of locations. That’s a real business. But it’s a fundamentally different business than building tools that work for the individual clinician.
The tools getting deployed in DSOs right now were selected by procurement teams optimizing for contract terms and rollout speed — not for whether the tool actually makes a hygienist’s 45-minute recall appointment run better, or whether a dentist feels confident the note it generates is accurate enough to sign.
That gap matters whether you’re running an independent practice or you’re a clinician inside a group. Independent practitioners aren’t Overjet’s target market. And DSO clinicians may find that what their organization bought wasn’t really chosen with them in mind. At OraCore, we’re building the other thing — AI documentation designed around the clinical workflow of the full care team. No enterprise contract required. No IT implementation. Works with the practice management software you already use. Built so every member of the care team — dentist, hygienist, assistant — has tools that work for them specifically, not just the dentist the procurement team thought about. Less time on documentation means more presence with the patient. That’s the goal.
When your organization or colleagues evaluate AI scribe tools, who’s actually in the room making that decision?
Hit reply — I read every one and respond when I can.
Until next week,
Brad Hutchison
CEO, OraCore AI
From the OraCore Blog This Week
Why Hygienists Are Quitting — And Why AI Scribe Is Part of the Answer
The workforce story behind this week’s bigger picture — AI documentation as a retention tool, not just an efficiency one.
The Hygienist’s Take: How AI Scribe Changes the Most Overlooked Role in Dentistry
Most AI scribe tools are built for the dentist. This one looks at what the hygienist actually experiences — and why it matters.
See OraCore in Action
OraCore is an AI scribe built for independent practices and individual clinicians — not enterprise rollouts. Works with your existing PMS, no IT setup, unlimited providers per location.
Dental AI Weekly drops every Monday.
Honest analysis of where this market is going, from someone building in it.
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