How to create an AI dental phone system

With our new time-saving, business-boosting app, DentalDial, understanding your customers has never been easier. This AI-powered app is designed to integrate seamlessly with Zoom dental phone systems. It analyses practice calls and produces valuable insights into call-handling quality. Additionally, it identifies trends in treatments and concerns, creating task lists to enhance your business's efficiency and development.

It’s like having an extra (very organised) team member quietly working in the background.

The Magic Behind the AI

"AI" can feel like a bit of a mystery. It often seems like a black box. You drop in a transcript, and out pops a polished summary, a sentiment score, and a task list—as if by magic.

But behind that “magic” is something more grounded: thorough testing, thoughtful design, and a lot of very intentional, very human work.

Coming from a background in forensic linguistics, I’ve spent years analysing how meaning is constructed through words—not just what’s said, but how it’s said and why. This lens has been invaluable in shaping how DentalDial interprets messy, real-life conversations into something structured, accurate, and actionable.

In this way, human judgment and analysis are still deeply embedded in how the app works. It shapes what it listens for, how it interprets meaning, and what it chooses to highlight.

Training the AI for Our Dental Phone System

Getting an AI model to understand and interpret complicated, often fragmented, human interactions is no small feat. Language is messy. Patients often refer to treatments in symptoms or feelings, not clinical terms. Prompting the model to interpret underlying intent (e.g., pain leading to extraction) helped, but it had to be carefully bounded to avoid hallucination.

From the general babble of a busy dental practice to interruptions and poor connectivity, call transcripts are often imperfect. It was necessary to train the system to thrive despite these conditions.

That’s why DentalDial was trained on hundreds of anonymised dental call transcripts. These real conversations included all the quirks, hesitations, noise, and unpredictability of human speech. Understanding where it faltered—and where it succeeded—was vital to perfecting and streamlining its productivity and ensuring its reliability.

To verify the AI's outputs, each transcript was carefully analysed through a linguistic lens. We looked not just at what was said, but how meaning was constructed, implied, or negotiated. That insight directly informed how we refined our prompts and shaped the AI’s understanding of dental-specific interactions.

Even before tweaking, the AI proved to be a keen and sharp assistant. It accurately picked out concepts 85% of the time and treatments 81% of the time. Over 62% of summaries were rated as “excellent”, with a further 21% rated as “very good.”

However, this analysis revealed opportunities for improvement. In the first few trials, the AI became slightly overenthusiastic. It would output tasks for both the "agent" and the patient. A rework of the wording put the AI back in its place, ensuring that the task lists remained firmly on the side of the dental team—not the unsuspecting patient.

This testing also allowed us to compile a large list of concepts and treatments for the AI to identify. The wording of these was tested and tweaked until the AI became an expert on all things dentistry. Thanks to this in-depth testing, DentalDial possesses an impressive ability to pick up on topics that are explicitly discussed, as well as potential treatments and implied concepts.

The result is an engine that understands the rhythm and reality of client-business communication. It can increase practice productivity with its sharp, reliable insights.

The Importance of Clarity in Communication

This might be an AI-powered app, but its "understanding" is based on real human insight. It is shaped by expertise in language, intention, and communication.

At its core, DentalDial is about clarity. It helps practices hear what’s really being said, spot patterns sooner, follow up faster, and improve the way they communicate—both with patients and within teams. Thanks to the rigour behind its training, DentalDial’s insights can be trusted to provide that clarity and, ultimately, to help boost your productivity.

We believe the future of patient experience starts with listening. AI, when guided by real human insight, can help us do that better than ever.

The Future of Dental Practices

As we move forward, the integration of AI into dental practices will only become more essential. The ability to analyse calls and derive actionable insights will empower practices to enhance patient care and streamline operations.

Imagine a world where every call is an opportunity for improvement. With DentalDial, that world is within reach.

If you're curious about what your calls are really saying—or how AI can make your practice more efficient, responsive, and informed—book a demo call today!

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