# We asked AI for a dentist 750 times. Independent practices won 97% of the time. *2026-10-10* · *Original Research* > In our Florida Dental AI Visibility Study, independent practices got 97% of AI recommendations and the big dental chains got 3%. The catch: 94.7% of practices showed up on only one AI tool. When a patient asks an AI tool for a dentist, the answer is usually a list of names. We wanted to know whose names. So we ran the Florida Dental AI Visibility Study. We asked five AI tools for a dentist 750 times, across 10 Florida cities and five kinds of dental care: general, emergency, cosmetic, pediatric, and implant. Two findings stood out. Independent practices beat the big dental chains by a wide margin. And almost every practice AI recommended showed up on only one of the five tools. ## Which AI tools did we test? We tested ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Overviews. That last one is the AI-written summary that sometimes appears at the top of a Google search, above the regular results. We asked the questions a patient would ask, like who is the best dentist in my city and who should I call. Then we recorded every practice each tool named. AI named a specific dental practice in 89% of those 750 searches. When a patient asks, AI answers with names. Four of the five tools named a practice almost every time. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude named one in all 150 of their searches, and Gemini did in 147 of 150. Google AI Overviews was the exception, and we will get to why. ## Do AI tools recommend dental chains or independent practices? They recommend independent practices, overwhelmingly. Of all the practice recommendations in the study, 97% went to independents. Dental Service Organizations, the chains and corporate groups, got 3%. Coast Dental was the most-named chain, with 45 mentions across 8 of our 10 cities. Aspen Dental showed up in all 10 cities and still collected only 27 mentions. Sage Dental, Gentle Dental, and ClearChoice had fewer than 10 each. If you own a single-location practice, that is good news. A chain's ad budget does not buy it a spot in an AI answer. The AI pulls from review sites, directories, and practice websites, and an independent practice can show up well on all of them. ## So why isn't every independent practice getting those patients? Because almost no practice shows up on more than one AI tool. AI recommended 2,548 different practices across the study, and 94.7% of them appeared on just one of the five tools. Only one practice in the whole study showed up on all five tools. Here is what that means for your front desk. A patient who asks ChatGPT might hear your name. Their neighbor who asks Perplexity the same question gets a different list, and you may not be on it. > 94.7% of the Florida dental practices AI recommended showed up on only one of the five AI tools we tested. Only one practice made all five. ## Why do the AI tools disagree so much? Each tool reads from different places. In our study, ChatGPT leaned on Bing and Healthgrades. Perplexity cited review sites, and Claude searched Yelp and practice websites. Gemini drew on Google's own data. Google AI Overviews showed up for only 45% of dental searches, and the rest of the time Google showed regular results with no AI answer at all. So the tools rarely agree. The best match was Claude and Perplexity, which named at least one of the same practices 56% of the time. ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews matched just 19% of the time. ## Does the type of dental care change anything? Yes, a little. Emergency searches got a named practice 93% of the time, the highest of the five types. Implant searches were lowest at 85%. Emergency searches also brought up Google's AI answer most often: 67% of the time, compared with 37% for cosmetic and implant searches. When someone has a toothache at night, Google is more likely to answer with AI. If you take emergency patients, that is the search to watch. City mattered less than you might think. Miami led at 92% and St. Pete was lowest at 87%, so patients in every city we tested got named practices most of the time. ## What should a dental practice owner do with this? Start by finding out which of the five tools know your practice exists. Most owners have never checked. Then look at where each tool gets its information. If ChatGPT leans on Healthgrades and your Healthgrades profile is empty, that is a gap you can close this week. The same goes for Yelp, your Google Business Profile, and your own website. In our separate 600-query home services study, the few businesses that made every AI tool had a few things in common. They had reviews on more than one site, matching business information across directories, and clear service pages on their websites. A dental practice can do all of that. ## Which AI tools name your practice today? Since each tool keeps its own list, the only way to know is to check all five. Our free scan checks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews for your practice and shows which ones name you. It takes about 60 seconds. **See which AI tools recommend your practice.** → [Run Your Free AI Visibility Check](https://getlocalvitals.com/check) --- Source: https://getlocalvitals.com/blog/dentist-ai-recommendations-florida-study Published by Local Vitals · https://getlocalvitals.com