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AI marketing for dentists: how ChatGPT and Gemini choose a dental practice

Direct answer: when a patient asks an assistant for a dentist, the assistant first turns the question into a few short web searches, then builds its answer from the pages those searches return. A practice shows up when its own pages, its profiles and its reviews answer that exact need clearly and consistently. No one can buy or guarantee a recommendation, and this page says what is measured and what is not.

What the assistants actually search (measured on 2026-10-09)

We asked Gemini, with Google Search turned on, three questions a patient would type and recorded the searches it ran and the sites it used. This is one probe on one day, not a ranking study.

Patient questionSearches the assistant ranSites it used
Who is the best dentist in Austin, Texas?"best dentist Austin Texas"; "top-rated dentists Austin Texas reviews"Practice websites, a "top rated" directory, Reddit, a dental directory
Emergency dentist open on Sunday in Sydney"emergency dentist Sydney Sunday"; "24-hour dentist Sydney"Practices whose pages are about emergency and 24-hour care

Two lessons follow. First, the search is short and local: city, need and sometimes the day. Second, the pages that won the Sunday question are pages written for that exact need, not a generic home page.

The six things a dental practice controls

  1. A verified Google Business Profile. Name, address, phone, hours, services, photos. Gemini draws on Google's own data, so this is the base.
  2. Bing Places and the main directories. ChatGPT relies on web search and listing sources; the same name, address and phone must appear everywhere.
  3. One page per treatment and per need. Emergency dentist, Invisalign, implants, children's dentistry, new patients, Sunday hours. Each page answers the question in its first lines.
  4. Real reviews, asked for honestly. Ask recent patients for an honest review; never offer a reward for it and never ask for five stars.
  5. Structured data on the website so a machine can read the practice without guessing (example below).
  6. Pages that state facts a patient asks about: insurance accepted, languages spoken, prices when you can publish them, how to book.

Dentist structured data (JSON-LD) to adapt

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Dentist",
  "name": "Example Dental Clinic",
  "url": "https://example-dental.com",
  "telephone": "+1-000-000-0000",
  "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "streetAddress": "1 Main St", "addressLocality": "Austin", "addressRegion": "TX", "postalCode": "00000", "addressCountry": "US" },
  "openingHoursSpecification": [{ "@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification", "dayOfWeek": ["Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday"], "opens": "08:00", "closes": "17:00" }],
  "medicalSpecialty": "Dentistry",
  "availableService": [{ "@type": "MedicalProcedure", "name": "Emergency dental care" }]
}

Use the practice's real details only. Wrong or invented data is worse than none.

How to check your own practice in ten minutes

  1. Write five questions a patient would type, without your practice name (for example "emergency dentist open Sunday in your city").
  2. Ask ChatGPT (logged out), Gemini and Perplexity. Write down who is named and which sites are cited.
  3. Repeat every month with the same five questions. Judge the trend, not a single answer: answers vary from one run to the next.

What MABIDO does, and what it does not

MABIDO produces and publishes, each month, the pages, answers and structured data that make a business easy for assistants to read, and reports what it measures on its own clients, including the empty results (what we cannot prove). It does not sell recommendations and does not promise citations. For a dental practice that means the website, profile and review groundwork above, done consistently.

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Frequently asked questions

Can a dental practice pay to be recommended by ChatGPT?

No. A practice can make its pages, profiles and reviews clear and consistent; whether it is cited stays the assistant's decision and nobody can guarantee it.

Is AI marketing for dentists different from dental SEO?

The foundations are the same: verified profile, consistent name, address and phone, a useful page for each treatment and need, real reviews. The difference is that an assistant answers with a short list, so being clearly described matters more than being one of ten links.

Which AI assistants should a dentist check?

At least ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, because they use different sources: Gemini draws on Google's index and profiles, ChatGPT on web search and listings.

How long before a change shows in AI answers?

It varies and can take weeks. Measure monthly with the same questions.