Episode #365: Is It Becoming Harder to Stand Out as a Dental Practice in the Age of AI?

Narrator: This is the Less Insurance Dependence podcast show with my good friend Gary Takacs and myself, Naren Arulrajah.

Narrator: We appreciate your listenership, your time, and most of all, we appreciate your intention to reduce insurance dependence in your practice. Our goal is to provide information that will help you successfully reduce insurance dependence and convert your practice into a thriving and profitable dental practice that provides you with personal, professional, and financial satisfaction. 

Adeesha: Welcome back to another episode of the Less Insurance Dependence Podcast. Today we’re talking about something that’s on everyone’s mind — artificial intelligence. I’m Dawn Adeesha, your co-host, and it’s good to have you here.

AI is transforming marketing, business, and even how patients find their dentist. But it raises a real question: Is it becoming harder for dental practices to stand out in this new landscape?

To explore that, I’m joined by LID’s very own co-host, Naren Arulrajah, CEO of Ekwa Marketing and a longtime expert in helping dentists grow their practices in today’s digital world.

Adeesha: Naren, you’ve worked with hundreds of practices across North America. With all these AI tools, is it really harder for practices to stand out?”

Naren:That’s a really, really good question, and thank you, Dawn, for having me. And absolutely, the answer is yes. It is harder for practices to stand out, but you can stand out if you know what to do and how to do it. So, I guess, like anything else, anytime there’s great change comes great opportunity. So this is a time where the smart practices can take advantage of this wave and, you know, thrive, and then the weak ones would dive. And I’ll tell you what the core problem is. The core problem is what AI is doing is it’s allowing people to create information at a scale that was un-imaginable before. Like in the old days, you know, to do a video or write an article, you needed a human being to do that.

Today, I can do that in seconds, right? 

When you have a technology that can create articles and videos and so forth, you know, at an infinite scale. As humans, we don’t know what is real and what is made up by AI. We all know AI sounds intelligent, but a lot of times it’s making up nonsense. So what’s happening is in this world, human content is becoming even more valuable. So if the content is created by humans, it’s going to rank more on Google. If it’s not, it’s not. Why? Because Google knows. Imagine, I’ll give you a practical example. Google, you know, shows up a page for a particular health-related question. And that content was generated by AI. AI doesn’t know if what it’s saying is correct or true. It’s not even a thing or a human being. It’s not responsible for anything.

So it makes up some nonsense and somebody reads it, follows the advice, and somebody dies, worst case. Now, Google is going to get liable, right? Now, Google can’t hide behind and say, well, we made a mistake. You know, people are like, you are Google, you can’t make mistakes. So, on the other hand, imagine the same content was written by a doctor, right? Now, Google can say, you know what, I didn’t say this.This is a board certified doctor who said this.So Google actually and most people who are controlling the internet, like Google, they are focusing more on saying, you know what, we are going to emphasize and show human content, more so than, you know, AI generated content. So I think the key lesson here is, you know, there is a time and a place to use AI. Like for example, if you’re creating social media graphics, perhaps you could use AI.

But if you’re writing an article because you want to rank on Google, don’t use AI. A, you want rank, and B, if you did use AI and it says the wrong thing, you are the one who’s liable because it’s on your website. So you have to really know when to use AI and when AI becomes a problem itself. And definitely when it comes to content, I would, I would rather it being generated by human beings, not by AI.”

Adeesha: That makes sense, that makes sense. So, from what you’re seeing as a host and talking with other practice owners, how is AI changing the way patients find and choose dentists?

Naren: Yeah, I mean, one thing that’s for sure is AI is here to stay, right? I mean, we know, for example, anyone who uses Google, by the way, Google search is used 12 billion times a day, and Google Maps is used 5 billion times a day. So, anyone who uses Google knows that AI overview and AI mode are now part of regular Google. And Google is kind of realizing that what ChatGPT taught Google and pretty much everybody else. For certain questions, humans like a paragraph summary answer.

Like for example, if I want to know the cost of dental implants in Chicago, I don’t want Google to give me 5 businesses and me read 5, you know, websites to figure out what the cost of dental implants in Chicago. I would rather Google, go in and figure all of that stuff out and give me a paragraph answer. The implants could cost anywhere between this to this, these are the different types and here are the price ranges for each type. And now, if I want to go deeper, Google will show me, you know, the links to additional information about those particular 5 particular practices, you know, websites where they got the information from.

Now, I know it’s real, it’s real people, real businesses whose information Google is sharing. But at the same time, I don’t want to go to 5 websites and figure it out. So in that sense, AI overview makes a ton of sense. So what we are noticing is, you know, AI is here to stay. And therefore, you as a practice owner need to make sure in this AI powered Google, for example, use 12 billion times a day for regular search and $5 billion on Google Maps, you are getting your fair share, right?

In the old days, what were the options? You would show up on Google Maps, you would show up on regular Google search. Now, you could also show up on Google AI overview. You could show up on Google AI mode. So the question is, are you also ranking on AI mode? Are you also ranking on AI overview? And what are the things you need to do to not only rank on maps and regular search, but also on AI mode and AI overview. So in that sense, I think you have to lean in and You can’t ignore the other search engines either, like ChatGPT for example, even though Google is, you know, 60 times bigger than ChatGPT when it comes to sheer number of times, it’s being used, it’s still, you know, who knows, maybe it’ll grow. So you don’t want to take a chance. Are you showing up on ChatGPT? Are you showing up on Perplexity? And when you are showing up, is the information accurate?

One of the big problems with many of these other new and up and coming AI engines is they don’t have this amount of real-time data that Google has. Why? Google has, you know, hundreds of millions of, you know, databases, I mean, servers or millions and millions of servers that’s collecting information on a day to day basis versus these other companies don’t have that many servers, don’t have that kind of infrastructure to get real-time information.

For example, I was talking to a friend of mine who’s a dental practice owner, and he noticed somebody who showed up on ChatGPT hasn’t even been practicing for the last 3 years. But ChatGPT didn’t know that he was not practicing for the last 3 years because they don’t update the information as often as Google does. So definitely, you know, he definitely is not going to use ChatGPT to find a dentist, but, you know, there might be others. So, is the information that the, the, these other platforms have about you are correct. So, a lot of things are happening in this fast-changing world, and are you keeping up? So that’s the question I would be asking.

Adeesha: And what can dentists do to make sure that their practice actually stands out and doesn’t get lost in all this AI-generated noise?”

Naren: Yes. So going back to what I previously said, you know, AI mode is becoming bigger and bigger and bigger part of, you know, AI overview is becoming a bigger part of regular Google search. So the 12 billion people who use Google, you know, maybe 1%, 2% of them are starting to see AI mode show up, AI overview show up for questions like, you know, dental implant price in Chicago, right? So, Google is telling us a few things. It’s saying, you know, you want to make sure you are optimizing the entire website, not just one page or one keyword. Why? Because Google’s thinking is, we want to reward people who do the right thing. Somebody who’s making sure their website as a whole is doing everything that is the best practices, whether it’s how fast it loads or whether it has human content, and is that human content shared correctly with Google. Google is going to reward those people. So right now, for example, Google has something called CRUX which is the next version of Google Lighthouse Go. So when you look at CRUX, for example, it’s looking at the entire website and it’s telling you all the things you’re doing right and all the things you’re doing wrong. 

So if you want to win in this AI Google world, you want to make sure you’re paying attention to CRUX. You want to make sure your entire website is optimized versus trying to optimize for one or two keywords. The other thing Google is really also telling us is it’s favoring human content. It’s not favoring AI content. So make sure all your pages are written by humans and it’s linked to the associated doctors. So for example, you have degrees from a particular university, include that in your bio, because Google wants to double check and make sure the content that they’re going to flow or show to their users is tied to a qualified professional.

As a doctor who has the necessary accreditations and certifications to be able to practice dentistry, for example, Google would rather show you information than somebody, some content that is generated by AI. So not only do you want the content to be, you know, written by humans, but you also want to make sure that content is associated with you. So one of the questions I get asked is, you know, I always take continuing education.

Should I go for name brand education or should I go for, you know, somebody’s doing a certificate? I really think this is a time where name brands are starting to make more of a sense. Like, for example, if you get a, you know, some kind of an extra certification or qualification with the entity affiliated with the university, a real, you know, university, that’s gonna mean more to you versus just somebody doing a weekend course and that person is not affiliated with the university. So, name brands that Google knows and trusts are becoming more important when it comes to these extra qualifications you’re getting. So that’s just a tip for anybody who’s thinking about CE.

Adeesha:I really like that focus on authenticity, that human content, as you mentioned, right? But with everything dentists are juggling — insurance, staff, patient care — how realistic is it for them to keep up with all this digital evolution?

Naren: You know, this is good news, bad news. The good news is you need a partner who you can trust, who really knows what they’re doing.

I mean, in our company, we have 300 people and we have 14 teams just working on all of this thing called, you know, AI search or regular search.

So you want to make sure you are backed up by a team that has a lot of depth and a lot of specificity because things are a lot more complex than they have ever been. So, you need that strength behind you. And also at the same time, as the owner needs to understand what’s important.

For example, the two key lessons I was trying to impart today is, you know, make sure it’s human content, make sure your bios are linked correctly, and make sure you’re not focusing on one keyword or two keywords, but rather the entire website using tools like CRUX.

So, you need to know what matters, and you need to make sure your marketing company that’s sophisticated, that has a large team of experts, is able to do all the things that you need to do to dominate in this AI search world.

Ah still, the foundational things haven’t changed. Strong website — you need the website for two reasons.

One, to influence people, but also more importantly, to influence Google, right? Google is sending for many of our clients tens of thousands of people a month, seeing them on Google alone. Like literally some of our clients are seen 30,000 times a month, 40,000 times a month.

So, the way you communicate through, with Google is through the website. Now, unlike in the old days, traffic to websites are coming down.

Why? In the old days, I could call your office from Google Maps. Today, I could also get all the information I need from AI Overview.

I don’t need to go to your website, even though the website is how we talk to Google and how we work with Google. Second is, the foundational thing is SEO, right? You want to rank on AI Overview, on AI Mode, on Google Search, on Google Maps.You want to dominate.

That’s something that we have preached for the last 18 years. That doesn’t change.

So are you the one dominating when it comes to people looking for someone like you anywhere on the Google world, billions of times?

If you don’t, your competition is going to eat your lunch. And last but not least, reviews, reviews, reviews, right? Eventually, humans are going to humans for healthcare, right? I mean, the doctor is a human, it’s not a robot. So they want to trust you or not trust you. So how do they decide whether to trust you or not?

It’s by reading those reviews. So 10 reviews a month. And of course, some of these tech strategies take time. So in the meantime, you could use ads as a way to fill in the gaps.

Now, the problem with ads is people don’t trust ads, so you need a lot more of them just to make up for one good person coming from organic marketing. Like almost like 6 people coming from ads equals 1 person from organic marketing.

But it’s a temporary solution as you build up your organic marketing, whether it’s AI search or regular search. Now, I like I said, partnering with companies that have the breadth and depth to be able to keep up in this fast-changing world is really, really important.

I mean, you, you, those of you who are watching the stock market know Google stock went up by $1 trillion in the last 2 or 3 months.

Why? 

People finally realized that Google has everything checkmated, right, in the sense they have most amount of data than anybody else in the world. They have the most amount of servers than anybody else in the world, and they have the most amount of users than anybody else in the world when it comes to people using Google literally billions and billions of times. So they have this unfair advantage and they were doing AI for the last 10–15 years, where some of these other companies are not even like 3 years old. So they have an unfair advantage. So I think Google is consolidating and it’s getting stronger and stronger.

And I think it’s using this fear of AI generated content being wrong, hallucination, etc., to its advantage. That’s one of the reasons I think it’s favoring human content because you can always say, well, you know what, you can trust people, you can’t trust AI.

Adeesha: Right, you can definitely trust people and it’s, you know, trusting AI is not the first thing to go for.So thank you very much, Naren for that wonderful, you know, point.

Adeesha: AI isn’t the enemy, it’s a tool. But without the right strategy, even the best tools can’t help you grow. If you want to stand out in this AI-driven world, start by building a strong foundation — your website, SEO, ads, and online reputation all work together to help the right patients find you.

Naren: Exactly, Don. My key takeaway before we wrap up is, AI is here to stay. It’s not a fad. You need to make sure you’re ranking on Google AI Overview. You need to make sure you’re ranking on Google AI Mode. You need to make sure you’re not ignoring platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity and so forth. So we do all of that. We did a major revamp. 

If anyone is interested in finding out how you are doing in this new world in 2025, in the AI world, book a marketing strategy meeting. The link is lessinsurancedependence.com/MSM.

We would spend 6 hours studying you, your competition, and giving you a report card. How are you doing in this, in this new world? Are you crushing it, or are you the one being crushed? If you’re crushing it, keep doing what you’re doing. We’ll tell you why you are crushing it, so you can keep doing the things that enable you to dominate. If you’re not doing really well, then we’ll also tell you what you need to fix. We’ll give you literally a roadmap — like how do you go from nowhere in the AI world to dominating the AI search world. And that roadmap, all of that, is a $900 value. Once again, lessinsurancedependence.com/MSM I hope you got some value from it. You know, lean in. This is just the way it is. You can definitely choose to lean in and take advantage of the trend of AI or get left behind.

Adeesha: Right. With that being said, thank you, Naren, and thank you to everyone listening. We’ll see you next week on the Less Insurance Dependence podcast.