By Anne Blythe
It’s no longer futuristic or science fiction to think that your trip to the dentist might include robotics and artificial intelligence.
Macon Singletary, a periodontist at North Raleigh Periodontics & Implant Center in Wake County, says it’s already here for him.
Fear not, he says. Humans will still play a key role in your care.
“I’ve been wanting to make sure whatever we do here benefits our patients,” Singletary told NC Health News.
Some of the things that Singletary uses AI for are helping him format clinical notes in real time during an appointment, preparing insurance claims, and helping him size implants and guide him as he drills holes in jawbones for implant placement. He also uses the technology to flag areas in dental X-rays that could be early signs of trouble such as bone loss and where dead bacteria might be.
Still, Singletary said, he has to take a look at the AI-highlighted areas himself.
“It’s going to point out things that may be false positives, so you need to check it,” Singletary said.
Singletary could be ahead of the curve in North Carolina incorporating AI and robotic technology into his practice. It’s a significant financial investment, and not all dentists are in a position to outfit their offices with robotic systems and smart software.
Nonetheless, planning is underway — at least at the national level — for the day when it becomes more routine.
Barriers in rural areas
In February, the American Dental Association submitted a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in response to a request for information on the adoption of artificial intelligence in clinical care.
ADA President Richard Rosato and Elizabeth Shapiro, an interim executive director at the association, acknowledged the transformative potential of AI in the letter to the assistant secretary for Technology Policy and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
They also highlighted in their seven-page response the challenges that small and rural offices face as use of the technology becomes more widespread in health care. Many are in areas that still have limited technology infrastructure, unlike urban areas on the other side of the digital divide — much more equipped to power up AI platforms and machines.
Some also struggle with workforce readiness gaps and regulatory uncertainty.
“Despite the potential benefits of AI, adoption across dental practices remains uneven, particularly among small and mid-sized practices,” Rosato and Shapiro said in the letter.
Those decisions, they added, are also influenced by privacy and legal risk management — especially when regulatory status is unclear. Practice owners and clinical leadership also weigh malpractice implications and a lack of standardized accountability in industry and performance benchmarks.
The ADA encouraged federal health and technology officials to strengthen vendor accountability so that dentists and oral health teams could rely on them “to deliver secure, compliant systems by default.” They recommended the development of clearer expectations about privacy and security responsibilities.
The dental association also recommended that “gold-standard synthetic datasets and independent validation frameworks” are put in place to help ensure that AI solutions “are reliable, unbiased and compatible with existing dental workflows.”
On the homefront
In 2021, a state Senate bill was enacted into law that establishes guidelines for dental care using “electronic or other digital means” that covers tools used for remote diagnosis and treatment. But the law was developed with the use of teledentistry in mind, before the recent proliferation of AI in health care.
The North Carolina Dental Society has not developed a “comprehensive position on AI as it grows and changes daily,” said Jim Goodman, executive director of the advocacy organization.
Leaders there, he said, “are constantly monitoring various AI innovations and implications to patient care, patient safety, patient privacy, office workflows, efficiency, etc.”
Goodman encouraged federal agencies to work with practitioners as they develop AI policies.
He stressed that any AI tool assessments should be reviewed by a trained dentist who is familiar with a patient’s cases and related treatment protocols.
Singletary has a phrase he repeats about AI technology — “stupid info in, stupid info out.”
“It’s an adjunct,” he said. “If you have inaccurate information in, you’re going to have inaccurate information out.”
The technology can help save time, but it can also add to clinicians’ workload as they check behind the tools.
“A dentist has to evaluate,” Singletary said. “It’s not going to do away with your provider.”
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