What You’ll Learn:

Table of Contents

• The Librarian Just Started Giving Out Answers
• How AI Actually Decides Who to Recommend
• Make Your Website Speak in Answers
• Treat Your Google Business Profile Like a Living Account
• Get Active on Social Media (Yes, Really)
• Show Up in Directories and Let Patients Talk About You
• Why Acting Early Matters
• FAQ

How Dentists Can Become the Practice AI Search Actually Recommends

The Librarian Just Started Giving Out Answers

Adrian opened with an analogy that makes this whole shift click. Searching used to work like walking into a library and asking a librarian for book recommendations. You’d get a stack of links (the books), and you’d have to go read them yourself. That’s old school Google.

Now? You walk up to the librarian and she just answers the question. No books, no clicking around, just the answer. That’s how ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and the AI Overviews you’re seeing at the top of Google search results work.

This has created something called the zero click phenomenon. As Adrian put it, around 68% of searches now end without anyone clicking a link at all, because the AI just hands over the answer right there on the page. That number was 60% only six months before his presentation. It’s climbing fast.

So what happens if the AI doesn’t mention your practice in that answer? Patients never see you. Not because your website is bad, but because the AI simply didn’t have you in its pool of “trustworthy” sources to pull from.

How AI Actually Decides Who to Recommend

Old school SEO worked by matching phrases. Write an article titled “Best Dentist in Miami” and you had a shot at ranking for that exact search. AI search doesn’t work that way at all.

Instead, when someone asks an AI a question like “I need an affordable but great dentist near me who takes walk ins,” the AI quietly breaks that into a dozen or more sub questions behind the scenes. Then it goes hunting across the internet for tiny pieces of information that answer those smaller questions, blending everything together into one original answer.

The AI pulls those answer fragments from five main places, and Adrian ranked them from most to least valuable.

Let’s break down what to actually do with each one.

1. Make Your Website Speak in Answers

Your website is still the single most important source AI checks first, but it has to work differently than it used to.

• Speed matters more than ever. AI is doing a massive amount of computation in a fraction of a second. If your site loads slowly, it just gets skipped entirely. Adrian recommends running a speed test regularly, since speed can quietly drop over time as plugins and widgets pile up.
• Write in question and answer format. Instead of a page titled “Dental Implant Cost,” try writing copy that directly answers “How much does a dental implant cost?” AI is hunting for answers, not just information.
• Add FAQs to every page and blog post. A short three to five question FAQ block at the bottom of your service pages gives AI easy, citable answers to pull from.
• Start (or keep) blogging weekly. Nobody loves writing blog posts, but practices without a blog are far less likely to get picked up by AI search.

If your website copy reads like a brochure instead of a conversation, this is exactly the kind of rewrite our dental SEO team and copywriters specialize in, structuring content the way AI wants to read it while keeping it sounding like you.

2. Treat Your Google Business Profile Like a Living Account

Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is the internet’s gold standard for verifying who you are, where you’re located, and what you offer.

• Check your primary category. “Dentist” should usually be your primary category, not “dental clinic,” since almost nobody in the US searches that term.
• Post to it regularly. Treat your GBP like a social account. Photos, updates, and links signal to Google that your practice is active.
• Stack up your services list. There’s no limit to how many services you can add in the backend. The more detail, the easier it is for AI to match a patient’s specific need to your practice.
• Get a serious volume of Google reviews. Adrian noted that roughly 75 to 80% of patients check a practice’s Google profile before ever picking up the phone, no matter how they originally heard about you. If your reviews look thin, the rest of your marketing budget won’t perform as well as it should.

Our reputation management service is built around exactly this, making it simple to request, respond to, and showcase reviews without adding more to your team’s plate.

3. Get Active on Social Media (Yes, Really)

For years, organic social media was tough to justify because results were hard to track. That changed in June 2025, when search engines started indexing social media content directly. Translation: your Instagram captions and TikTok videos are now fair game for AI search to reference.

• Post to Facebook, Instagram, YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and your GBP. Specialists should add LinkedIn for referral relationships.
• Prioritize video over static photos. Video earns roughly twice the views and significantly more engagement.
• Build a content theme so you’re not staring at a blank screen every week (think “Myth Buster Monday”).

This is the exact gap our social media team fills for practices that don’t have the bandwidth to plan and shoot content every single week.

4. Show Up in Directories and Let Patients Talk About You

Rounding out the list, directories (Healthgrades, Yelp, Zocdoc, and dozens of smaller “best of” local directories) and user generated content (reviews, Reddit, Quora mentions) act as third party validation. AI tends to trust what other people say about you far more than what you say about yourself.

The fix here is simple in theory. Get listed everywhere relevant and keep encouraging patients to leave detailed, story driven reviews rather than generic five star ratings.

Why Acting Early Matters

Adrian’s biggest point wasn’t really about tactics. It was about timing. Roughly 90% of the dental industry has no idea any of this is happening yet. Early adopters of past shifts (think the practices that jumped on social media a decade ago) ended up with such a head start that competitors could never fully catch up. The same window is open right now with AI search, and it won’t stay open forever.

If you want a clear gut check on where your practice stands today, that’s exactly what our team can help map out, whether it’s your website’s speed, your Google Business Profile setup, or your social and review strategy.

Interested in more expert advice? Book Adrian Lefler to speak or read more about his expertise to learn more.

Frequently Asked Questions