Questions patients ask AI before choosing a dentist

Your dental practice result

From this report, answers captured September 8, 2026.

29 of 40

Cities where the answer is still open

No single dental practice owns the AI answer there yet

3.4

Dentists named in the average city answer

Everyone the answer leaves out is invisible to that buyer

310

Dentists screened

Websites read by machine across 40 US cities

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The library

The ten, and what each one is testing.

Questions are exactly the ten already published on the dentists hub. Wording is unchanged; [city] is the market being checked. Unlike roofers and law firms, there is no raw AI Mode transcript kept city by city for dentists, so five of the ten below say plainly that no observed example is sourced rather than inventing one.

The Dental AI Visibility Index reports what the first of these ten answered, city by city.

01
Which family dentist in [city] is accepting new patients?
Testing: New patient availability
Where the answer is pulled from: A new patient page. 44 percent of the 366 dental homepages read for the index link one, and new patients welcome is stated in words on 20 percent.
Observed example: Not sourced. No file read for this draft quotes a specific city's answer to this exact wording; the Dental AI Visibility Index capture asked who is the best dentist rather than this question.
02
How much does a dental crown cost in [city]?
Testing: Price
Where the answer is pulled from: A page that states a fee. Only 15 percent of read homepages show a price on the homepage or link a pricing page, and this line does not separate named practices from unnamed ones at all: 15 percent on both sides.
Observed example: Not sourced. No crown price appears in any file read for this draft.
03
Who is the best dentist in [city] for dental implants?
Testing: A specific procedure
Where the answer is pulled from: A page naming implants specifically. 81 percent of read homepages list dental implants as a service, and implants offered separates named practices from unnamed ones, 89 versus 79 percent.
Observed example: Not sourced as a city capture. The named-domain audit records that Google AI Mode named Image Dental for this kind of implant and cosmetic search in Carmel, IN, though the domain later guessed for it, imagedental.com, turned out to be a Dallas, TX practice and was dropped from the technology crawl. The name is real; the matching website is not, which is itself a finding about how easily a name and a domain come apart.
04
Is there an emergency dentist open today in [city]?
Testing: Same-day emergency care
Where the answer is pulled from: Emergency dentistry stated on the homepage. 57 percent of read homepages offer it, and it separates named practices from unnamed ones, 70 versus 52 percent.
Observed example: Not sourced. No file read for this draft names a specific emergency dentist answer for a specific city.
05
Which dentist in [city] takes Delta Dental?
Testing: A specific insurance plan
Where the answer is pulled from: An insurance or financial policy page. 42 percent of read homepages link one, but insurance accepted stated in words is only 14 percent, and in-network stated is 7 percent, one of the few lines that runs slightly backwards: 6 percent among named practices against 7 among the rest.
Observed example: Not sourced. No Delta Dental mention appears in any file read for this draft; CareCredit, a financing partner rather than an insurer, is the only named plan-shaped brand the findings file tracks, at 26 percent of sites on both the named and unnamed side.
06
Who is a good pediatric dentist near [city]?
Testing: A specific patient type
Where the answer is pulled from: Pediatric dentistry stated on the homepage. 31 percent of read homepages offer it.
Observed example: Not sourced. No file read for this draft names a specific pediatric dentist answer for a specific city.
07
Which [city] dentist offers Invisalign or clear aligners?
Testing: A specific procedure
Where the answer is pulled from: A page naming Invisalign or clear aligners. This is the single strongest separator in the whole index: 76 percent of named practices offer it against 51 percent of the rest. No practice in the index claims an Invisalign provider tier at all, 0 percent of 366 sites.
Observed example: Not sourced as a city capture, but the audit trail names one real mismatch worth knowing: Google AI Mode named Legacy Dental Group for Edmond, OK, and its title tag reads Legacy Dental Group, Glendale, AZ, the right brand name attached to the wrong practice.
08
I am anxious about the dentist. Who in [city] is good with nervous patients?
Testing: A specific patient concern
Where the answer is pulled from: Sedation dentistry stated on the homepage, or language about nervous or anxious patients. Sedation dentistry is offered on 39 percent of read homepages and separates named from unnamed, 49 versus 37 percent.
Observed example: Not sourced. No file read for this draft quotes anxiety or sedation language tied to a specific city.
09
How much is a teeth cleaning without insurance in [city]?
Testing: Price without insurance
Where the answer is pulled from: A stated cash price or a membership or savings plan. 20 percent of read homepages mention a membership or savings plan, and a new patient special or offer actually runs backwards, 6 percent among named practices against 11 among the rest.
Observed example: Not sourced. No cleaning price appears in any file read for this draft.
10
Which dentist in [city] has Saturday or evening appointments?
Testing: Extended hours
Where the answer is pulled from: Hours stated on the homepage or an online booking route. An online booking or appointment request route exists on 70 percent of read homepages, and a named online booking vendor separates named practices from unnamed ones, 31 versus 22 percent.
Observed example: Not sourced. No file read for this draft states specific Saturday or evening hours for a named practice in a named city.

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The pattern

Why one name is luck.

The letters after a dentist's own name do not decide this. DDS or DMD appears after a name on 37 percent of AI-named practice sites and 48 percent of the rest; any provider credential at all runs 44 versus 54, backwards. A dentist can be the single most credentialed office in a city and still lose the naming question to a practice that simply lists more of what it does.

What actually separates named practices from unnamed ones is the range of procedures stated in writing: Invisalign 76 versus 51 percent, emergency dentistry 70 versus 52, sedation 49 versus 37, periodontal 65 versus 48, implants 89 versus 79. Named practices list a median of 14 services against 12 and write 1,314 words against 946. That range is exactly why a practice named for best dentist in general can still be absent from the Invisalign question, the emergency question or the insurance question: each one reads a different page, and a practice only wins the questions whose procedure or plan it actually wrote down.

CareCredit is the clearest proof that a popular badge is not a visibility strategy. It sits on 94 of the 366 read homepages, a quarter of the whole index, and the share is 26 percent among named practices and 26 percent among unnamed ones, identical to the point. Being named once does not mean a practice did anything right that the badge itself explains. It means, question by question, its own pages happened to answer what was asked.

What we do for dentists

Cite this report

KKV Labs (2026). The 10 questions patients ask AI before choosing a dentist, September 2026 edition. KKV Labs LLC. https://www.kkvlabs.com/research/what-patients-ask-ai-dentists

GitHub: dataset and crawl code. Licence: CC BY 4.0.

Sources

Every percentage and every observed example on this page traces to one of these files.

kkvlabs-outreach/research/DENTAL-INDEX-FINDINGS-2026-09-11.md (all percentages, counts, headline findings, and the named-domain audit examples for Carmel IN, Edmond OK)
src/app/industries-content.ts, slug "dentists", field prompts (the exact 10 questions)

GitHub: dataset and crawl code. Licence: CC BY 4.0.

Questions

What people ask about this data.

Where does this data come from?

From our own screening, run the same way for every report. We ask Google AI Mode who the best dentist is in each city from a fresh logged out session, then we open the practices it names, one by one, and read their homepages. The Dental AI Visibility Index has crawled 435 sites and read 366 of them, across 40 cities, with 134 practices named. Nothing is bought, licensed or estimated.

Can I cite these numbers?

Yes, free of charge. Name KKV Labs as the source and link to the report page so your reader can see the date and the method.

Is a dentist named in the answer better than one that is not?

No, and we do not say that anywhere. The lists are a dated snapshot of what one AI answer said on one day. They are not rankings, not endorsements, and not a judgement about any dentist's work.

Why do five of these ten questions say not sourced instead of an example?

Because we only capture what an AI engine actually says, and the AI Mode transcripts run for the Dental AI Visibility Index answered one question, who is the best dentist, not all ten. We would rather tell you a question is not yet checked than invent an answer for it.