- In one study, 85% of brand mentions in AI answers came from other people's sites.
- 45% of US consumers now use ChatGPT or similar tools for local recommendations.
- For dentists, Google and Yelp carried over 70% of AI citations in one 2026 study.
- Zocdoc and Healthgrades each drew 1% or less of those dental citations.
- A mention doesn't need a link, but your name has to be easy to recognize.
- Reviews that describe the treatment are mentions AI can read.
- Paid links and pay-to-play awards can work against you.
Brand mentions are references to your practice on websites you don't own, and AI tools lean on them when deciding which dentists to cite and recommend.
I'm on calls with dental practices every week, and this is the part of AI search I end up explaining most. Your website is the one place where you get to write your own reviews, so ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews look at what everyone else says about you. In one study of AI answers, 85% of brand mentions came from sites the brand didn't own.
Patients are already acting on it. The team at a periodontal practice we work with at 1flowww told me, "We've had patients who literally said they found us on ChatGPT."
What is a brand mention in AI search?
A brand mention is any time your practice name or your own name appears somewhere you don't control. It can come with a link or without one.
For a dental practice, that usually means:
- A Google or Yelp review that describes the treatment a patient had
- An article on another site that quotes you or names your practice
- A YouTube video where you explain a procedure
- A Reddit thread where a patient recommends you
- A directory listing or a provider locator, like the one for a system you're certified in
Most of these will never link to your website. For AI, that's fine. I told my own team this spring, "They don't even have to link to you. They just have to mention you and talk about you."
The data points the same way. When Ahrefs looked at 75,000 brands, mentions of a brand anywhere on the web, linked or not, tracked AI Overview visibility more closely than backlinks.
Mentions scored a correlation of 0.664, against 0.218 for backlinks. That's a correlation, so it can't prove cause, but it matches what I see on our client accounts.
Where dental practices get brand mentions
Every source teaches AI something different about you. This is how I break it down with clients.
| Where you're mentioned | What AI learns from it | What it takes from you | Where practices go wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google reviews | Which treatments patients had and how they felt | A neutral review request to every patient | Telling patients what to write or which staff member to name |
| Yelp | Ratings and reviews ChatGPT can pull into local answers | A claimed, complete profile | Leaving the page unclaimed |
| Articles on editorial sites | That an editor trusted your expertise | One strong opinion and a 30-minute conversation | Pitching generic topics editors reject |
| YouTube videos | How you explain your own work | A phone, good light and a few minutes per topic | Polished ads with nothing to teach |
| Reddit and local groups | What patients say unprompted | Answering questions as yourself | Promo posts and fake accounts |
| Press releases | That something new and real happened | Actual news, like new technology or a new provider | Releases with nothing to report |
| Directory listings | That your details match everywhere | About an hour of cleanup | Old suite numbers, mixed phone formats, conflicting start years |
| Paid awards and link farms | Nothing useful | Money | Treating a purchased mention like an earned one |
Why AI trusts other websites more than yours
Think about how you'd vet a specialist you've never met. You wouldn't go by their website alone. You'd ask a colleague, read reviews, maybe look them up on a study club page. AI does a version of the same thing, across thousands of sources at once.
That 85% figure comes from AirOps, which tracked 21,311 brand mentions across GPT-5, Claude, and Perplexity. The queries were about business software, not dentistry, so I treat it as a direction rather than a dental benchmark.
Healthcare leans even harder on outside sources. In an analysis of 6.8 million AI citations across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, listings made up 52.61% of all healthcare citations. Healthcare relied on third-party validation more than any other industry in that analysis.
For dentists, the picture gets specific.
Of the 25,005 AI citations BrightLocal collected for dental practices in 2026, 57% pointed to google.com and 15.4% to Yelp. Zocdoc came in at 1% and Healthgrades at 0.5%.
The dental sample covered a few dozen practices, so read it as a signal. If you pay for a premium directory profile because a vendor said it helps with AI, look at those numbers first.
Yelp is the one I'd stop ignoring. It now licenses its reviews, photos, and business details to OpenAI so ChatGPT can surface them in local answers.
What happened when I tested Dr. Joyce Kahng in ChatGPT
This summer I ran a clean, unpersonalized prompt for "best cosmetic dentist in Orange County." ChatGPT placed Dr. Joyce Kahng second. The description it gave matched how Dr. Kahng talks about her own work: no-prep and minimal-prep veneers, enamel preservation, facial harmony, a modern boutique practice.
Dr. Kahng has repeated that positioning for years across interviews, press features, and her own videos. On our call, she said, "I used to be number one."
The top spot went to a dentist with a long, documented record of complex reconstructive cases. In that test, the generic "best" prompt leaned toward big full-mouth work. That's why I care more about the prompts your ideal patients type than the generic one.
Patients are already asking ChatGPT for a dentist
In BrightLocal's 2026 survey, 45% of US consumers used ChatGPT or other AI tools for local recommendations, up from 6% the year before.
I hear it from clients directly.
A dentist in the Boston area told our team about a patient who found the practice through ChatGPT. The patient had asked for "a recommendation of a dentist that's a good dentist that is nearby." The dentist told us, "Okay, that means I'm kind of showing up on chat."
Kind of… yes.
Referred patients check too. The periodontal practice I mentioned gets about 85% of its patients from other dentists. Their team told me, "They'll say, ' Here, we're referring you to three different places, and the patient is clueless, and then they go online."
Online now includes ChatGPT. From what I've seen, reviews and the way patients describe you weigh heavily in who it recommends. In my tests, the recommendations often come with links to Google reviews, so the patient reads your reviews inside the answer.
Which brand mentions count for a dental practice
Who mentions you matters as much as how often. I told a practice owner in August that "who holds the authority to mention you is so important."
Reviews that describe the treatment
AI reads how patients describe you. A review that says "my implant consult was clear and nobody rushed me" tells AI far more than "great office!"
You can't script that. Google's review policy bans incentives, bans asking only happy patients, and bans asking patients to include specific content, which covers naming a staff member. I had to reverse my own advice on staff names this year because of it.
What you can do is ask every patient, every visit, in the same neutral way, and let the detail come from them.
More isn't automatically better either. One dentist I work with told our team, "I don't want to be that office that has a thousand reviews... and they're all five stars." Around 200 felt more believable to her, and I agree.
Volume and recency still matter when patients compare you with the office down the street. When we compared one long-established practice with the offices around it, it sat at 4.6 stars while everyone nearby was between 4.9 and 5.0.
A newer practice on the same block had 906 reviews in eight years. Our client had 276 across more than three decades. Thirty years of great dentistry is invisible to AI if patients never wrote it down.
Articles on sites an editor controls
An outside article is the clearest signal that someone with authority vouched for you. This summer I placed an article by one of our dentists on KevinMD. The site names the author but doesn't link to the practice for free.
Google still counts the link, but AI tools pick up a distinctive name without one. As I put it - they pick up on the name without the link. If your name is common, pair it with your city and your focus every time it appears.
Editors have to say yes, though.
Joyce the Dentist publishes contributor articles under each dentist's own name, and I keep getting pitches from dentists who want AI citations. Most are generic. One was a guide to getting implants abroad, and we passed.
Editors accept opinions only you can give, because a point of view like that "gives AI a reason to cite you as an authority."
HARO, the reporter-query service I used to answer for backlinks years ago, shut down in December 2024 and came back under new ownership in April 2025. It's useful again for mentions more than links. A reporter quoting you by name in a health story is the kind of mention AI picks up.
Videos where you explain your own work
AI Overviews pull from YouTube regularly. YouTube ranked among the most-cited domains, with a 9.5% mention share in AI Overviews and 16.1% on Perplexity.
In a later study across ChatGPT, AI Mode, and AI Overviews, YouTube mentions correlated with AI visibility more strongly than any other factor measured.
You don't need a production crew. Film in landscape, explain one procedure per video, say your name, your practice, and your city, and link the video from the matching service page.
Reddit and local community threads
Reddit was the most-cited source in Google's AI Overviews and on Perplexity in an analysis of 680 million citations. To AI, a Reddit thread reads as "someone's experience," and as I told a client this summer, "it's not something that was bought."
That's also why promo posts fail there. Answer questions as yourself, disclose who you are, and never create accounts to praise your own practice.
I also read local subreddits and Facebook groups to find the exact words patients use, then use those words on service pages.
Press releases with real news
I told a cosmetic dentist this summer that press releases are making a comeback right now. When you send real news, someone quotes you, someone posts about you. New technology, a new provider, an anniversary, or a community event all count.
Watch for the paid version.
After we sent out a press release in September, a business site offered to feature 1flowww among companies to watch, for a $2,000 registration fee. A feature you pay for is an ad with nicer formatting.
Listings that match, down to the phone format
AI compares your details across every listing it finds. On one call, I flagged a dentist whose start year differed from site to site. AI tools like to see everything the same across the board, down to how the phone number is written.
Check your name, address, suite number, phone format, start year, and credentials on Google, Yelp, Healthgrades, Facebook, and your own site.
The mentions that hurt your practice
Some mentions cost you. Earlier this month I audited a practice with over 1,100 links from spam link farms. The anchor text read like "premium PBN backlinks." Someone had paid for them, most likely a past SEO vendor.
I told the owner those are paid citations. Spam links can also point at you without anyone buying them. Check your link profile once or twice a year and disavow the junk.
The same goes for fake reviews, review gating, and paid "best of" awards. They either break Google's rules or add nothing AI can trust.
How to earn brand mentions this month
- Write your positioning in one sentence. Use it on your Google Business Profile, your website, your Instagram bio, and every directory.
- Clean up your listings. Match your name, address, suite, phone format, start year, and credentials everywhere.
- Ask every patient for a review, the same way. Send a neutral text a few hours after the visit, with no incentive and no suggested wording.
- Claim and complete your Yelp page. ChatGPT can pull from it for local answers.
- Pitch one contributor article. Pick the topic where you disagree with your peers, and back it with your cases. We accept expertise and authority here.
- Record three short videos. Choose the procedures you want more of, film in landscape, and link each one from its service page.
- Send a press release when something real happens. New technology, a new associate, or a milestone all qualify.
- Check AI every two weeks, logged out. Use the prompts your ideal patients type, expand the sources, and save dated screenshots.
The best dentists I meet are usually the quietest ones online. AI has no way to recommend a practice that only talks about itself.
FAQ
Do brand mentions need a link to help with AI?
No, a mention without a link can still help AI tools connect your name with your expertise. In the Ahrefs study of 75,000 brands, web mentions, linked or unlinked, correlated with AI Overview visibility at 0.664, against 0.218 for backlinks. Links still help with Google rankings, so take them when you can.
How long does it take for ChatGPT to recommend my dental practice?
There's no fixed timeline, because AI answers change every few days. I've seen a well-structured page earn an AI Overview sentence in seven days, while reputation built through reviews and outside articles takes months of steady work. Run the prompts your patients use every two weeks to see the trend.
Can I pay to get my practice recommended by ChatGPT?
You can buy an ad in ChatGPT, but you can't buy the recommendation itself. OpenAI says ads do not influence ChatGPT's answers, appear clearly labeled below the response, and only reach Free and Go users. The answer still comes from what the web says about you.
Are Google reviews brand mentions?
Yes, Google reviews are brand mentions, and for dentists they sit inside the most-cited source. In BrightLocal's 2026 data, 57% of the AI citations collected for dentists pointed to google.com, where your Business Profile and reviews live. Reviews that describe the treatment give AI more to work with than a one-line five-star.
How do I check if AI recommends my dental practice?
Open ChatGPT logged out or in a Temporary Chat set to Unpersonalized, then ask the questions your ideal patients ask, with your city and the treatment. Do the same on Google, expand the AI Overview sources and save dated screenshots. Repeat every two weeks.
Do press releases still help dentists?
Yes, when there's real news behind them. A release about new technology, a new provider, or a practice milestone gives reporters and local sites a reason to name you, and each of those is a mention. A release with nothing new gives editors no reason to repeat it.
Bera Niemczewski is co-founder of 1flowww, a boutique marketing agency that helps dental practice owners grow their personal and practice brand and revenue through SEO, AI search, websites, social media and front desk training. Bera works alongside dentists to help their voice be heard and their expertise be shown. She’s also an editor of Joyce the Dentist. You can follow her on Instagram at @beragrows.
Our editorial process · written from our work with dental practices, sourced and corrected in the open.
- 28 Oct 2026 Published.
Is something here out of date?
Evidence moves and pages go stale. If you treat this every week and you’d change something on this one, tell us what and why. A dentist reads every submission.