Grant McAree encourages dentists to stop, take a breath, and consider the real implications of AI in modern dentistry.
Back up a bit. Have you noticed there aren’t headlines about AI and regulations? That’s because the AI wild west is calming. Not because our governments are restricting it – it’s because they are failing.
‘By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the martians 10 times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.’
H G Wells
I have studied AI and its use in the workplace. I have recorded examples, heard the near-human voice and the lack of lag. Also, I have experienced the fear and hesitation in the user, wondering whether the AI is human or a machine. Mark my words: if you are making an AI almost human, you will fail. If you are expecting a machine to have a conversation like a human, you will fail.
It dawned on me why all these AI solutions are falling like the martians in War of the Worlds. A solution advertised that their AI could remember patients’ numbers. The caller would contact the surgery, greeted by their name. This was a great selling point to the client. But to the patient? It would scare me. Data should not be stored for more than 29 days. Let’s not forget the ABCs of AI: accurate (crap in, crap out), brand protecting (don’t let it dish out fake information) and lastly, compliant. Don’t negotiate on compliance. Storing data, for me, is inexcusable.
‘We must always preserve the human spirit’
In the words of Leonie Mack: ‘We’ll always have Venice.’ In November 2025, thanks to Wildix, we had the opportunity to meet with some industry analysts in gorgeous Italy – people who study the market, study the trends and purchasing decisions. We all agreed that we must always preserve the human spirit. We must always control what the AI says and does. But even if the companies pop up and claim a superhuman, pivoting, reasoning AI – mark my words, you may sell it to your clients, but the end users will find it not only scary; it will verge on weird.
We are on this earth because we deserve to be here. We are always trying to make things in our own image, from books, religion, to characters in a film. Let’s not forget we control this development.
The mobile phone broke more businesses than AI ever will: torch makers, alarm clocks, watches, calculators, sat navs, music MP3 portable players, cameras. The list is endless. The reason it didn’t frighten us is because we never saw it coming. With AI, we are firmly ready to protect our own. We will not fall to the machine.
I want to say a massive thank you to Venice and Wildix. Yesterday, I was drilling teeth. Then I am in front of some of the smartest people I have ever met, all agreeing that the success of AI lies in improving efficiency, improving profit, and allowing staff to have more face-to-face interactions. Any other solution will get pushback. Humans will never allow the rise of the machines. We really have bought our birthright of the earth.
Real-world success: improving efficiency and access in healthcare (doctor’s practices are next)
Flagging something timely tied directly to what’s happening in GP access right now. While practices are being pushed toward online triage, many are seeing the opposite effect: more admin for GPs, overwhelmed inboxes, and fewer available appointments. And the public keeps saying the same thing in every poll: ‘Just let me get through to my GP.’
RoboReception is just a small UK health-tech partnership. It was founded by a dentist and a marketer who fixed this in their own practices, and in partnership with Wildix, is now being picked up by doctors surgeries because it does something current systems don’t: it guarantees every call is answered and booked instantly, without replacing staff or adding to workloads. Crucially, RoboReception is not using a white-labelled product; we are partners growing with Wildix, a great forward-thinking company that we love working with.
‘Aligns perfectly with the goal of improving efficiency and profit’
Some dental practices testing it haven’t missed a patient call since May, which is why the early interest is accelerating. It fills the access gap digital-first models created, catches the vulnerable and digitally excluded, genuinely relieves the 8am bottleneck, and it was built locally by a clinician who lived the problem day-to-day.
The success aligns perfectly with the goal of improving efficiency and profit: dental deployments already handled 70,000+ calls with zero missed and 96% resolved, which is why GPs are bringing it in. We aren’t trying to change the world. We are trying to make businesses more efficient. To connect people. To improve profit through face-to-face interactions and less wasted resources. We want to make businesses remember that AI is not the enemy. RoboReception and Wildix are at the forefront of AI supporting reception, not at replacing the human being.
Curious to find out whether RoboReception AI could help your practice the way it’s helped others? Click here to try it free for seven days and discover how human-guided AI can make a real difference.
This article is sponsored by RoboReception.
