Are you wondering how Artificial Intelligence data will transform dentistry in 2026?
Posted on August 01 by Dr Andrew Nesbitt
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are starting to make a real difference in healthcare, especially in dentistry. While these technologies might sound futuristic, they’re already helping dental teams at practices like Shenstone Dental deliver better, more personalised care to patients. While AI will never replace the expertise and care of your dental team, it’s already making dentistry smarter, safer, and more accessible for everyone.
But what do these advances actually mean for you, and how could they shape the future of your dental and medical treatment?
What Is AI Doing in Dentistry Right Now?
AI in dentistry is most visible in radiographic imaging. When you have a dental X-ray, AI-powered tools can help dentists spot early signs of tooth decay, gum disease, or even tumours with greater accuracy than ever before. These systems can analyse thousands of radiographs, learning to recognise subtle patterns that might escape the human eye. This means problems can be caught earlier, and treatment can be more precise.
For more on how AI is already benefitting dental specialists, see the European Federation of Periodontology’s summary.
Artificial intelligence is going to be (and is already) transformative in healthcare and it has many broad ramifications as it relates to personalized or precision care. One of the very big areas where AI is being leveraged is in biomedical imaging, in radiographic interpretation.
Many AI companies in dentistry are really focused on radiographic imaging and then adding a variety of tools to identify dental issues, periodontal disease, and so on. Looking at bone levels around implants and teeth and then using this concept of computer vision from the radiographs, you can identify a variety of different structures within the oral cavity for those disease states. But you can also identify things like tumours within the jaws and then be able to discriminate different types of tumours. Through machine learning, once these radiographs are annotated, the systems continue to get better and better.
More dental radiographs have been annotated in this way than medical radiographs. And this is where dentistry is leading in the whole field of healthcare, because a patient who goes to the dentist will oftentimes get a full-mouth series of individual radiographs.
There are so many different items on a radiograph that dentists use daily: bone, tooth, implant, soft tissue. We can also see where the root canal is located, if a root canal filling has been done, if there is a certain type of filling or crown or potential pathology. So many things that can be identified and where artificial intelligence can be leveraged. Looking at a radiograph, the naked eye can discriminate, I believe, 64 shares of grey, but it can now be infinite numbers depending on the quality of the AI.
Beyond the Dentist’s Chair: AI in General Medicine
AI isn’t just for teeth. In hospitals and clinics, machine learning helps analyse medical images, interpret pathology slides, and even predict patient risks based on health data. For example, AI can flag unusual cells in a biopsy or help doctors spot early warning signs of disease. The other big area in dentistry and medicine that is rapidly being improved by AI is pathology. Pathological specimens, histological slides derived from a biopsy, are now being read by AI tools.
This means being able to identify the needle in the haystack in terms of those cancer cells that were maybe somehow missed by a clinician, or the AI imaging software picks up these different histological or pathological changes and brings them to the attention of the clinician. The result? It might be something that can be monitored versus something that needs further biopsy, or maybe we're going to have to deliver a specific chemotherapeutic regimen, maybe surgery. This technology is also being used to tailor treatment plans to individual patients, making medicine more personal and effective.
What Would Technology Mean for Patients and Personal Data?
For patients, the rise of AI means more accurate diagnoses, fewer unnecessary treatments, and faster results. At Shenstone Dental, we use modern technology to support our range of treatments and ensure our care is always up to date. Curious about specific dental concerns? Our team is happy to answer questions—just visit our Dental Concerns page or contact us directly.
Like any new technology, AI in healthcare raises important questions about data privacy and fairness. UK law, including the UK GDPR, sets strict rules on how your health data is used and protected[^1]. Dentists and doctors must ensure that AI tools are reliable and don’t introduce bias into care decisions. Ultimately, AI is a tool to help clinicians—not replace them.
Looking Ahead: The Future of AI in Dentistry
We are now seeing AI methods being incorporated into so many different aspects.Back in 2021, we first documented use of machine learning for risk-stratifying patients who were receiving treatment for peri-implantitis and reconstructive therapy. As a part of that study, we looked not only at the clinical presentation, but also at radiographs, age, all those basic demographics of a patient. We also harvested biopsies from these patients because then they received surgical therapy, laser treatment, bone grafts. And we looked at the immune cells that were comprising those defects around the dental implants. Then we also looked at the microbial composition.
So, what were those bacteria contributing to the disease presence, and then what were the cell populations that were adjacent to that implant? We used research methods to develop a machine-learning algorithm to identify patients who were low risk, moderate risk, and high risk for responding to the intervention.
We’ve also harnessed AI to address oral-health disparities, and there’s a recent paper that used some AI models to identify workforce shortages and so-called “dental deserts”[3], really looking at where these patient populations are located.
AI is set to play a bigger role in everything from patient education to treatment planning. It may even help tailor how often you need to visit the dentist, based on your individual risk factors. At Shenstone Dental, we’re committed to using technology to improve your experience—learn more about our approach on our Technology page or check our latest news.