Wise Roots LLC

The ADA just published their mid-2026 survey, and 43.3% of U.S. dentists are already using AI for at least one task in their practice. Insurance verification, imaging review, patient communication after visits. Not robots doing dentistry. Just practices running faster and following up smarter.

Another 26.4% say they plan to adopt. That's nearly 70% of the profession either in or committed.

One thing we tell practice owners: ask your current imaging software vendor what AI features are already in your system. Carestream, Dentsply Sirona, and Planmeca have been adding detection tools to existing platforms. You may already be paying for something you haven't turned on.

What's the one admin task your front desk touches every day that you wish they didn't have to?

https://wiserootsllc.com/blog/ada-survey-dentists-ai-adoption-2026

McDonald's just told investors their new AI drive-thru system saves more than 50 staff hours a week. Per location. That's not a projection, that's what they put in front of investors on September 23rd.

The technology behind it already exists for independent restaurants today, at a fraction of the scale. AI that answers the phone, takes reservations, handles menu questions, and hands off to a human when it needs to.

We call the cost of unanswered calls the Missed Order Tax. It's real, it's invisible, and most owners have never actually counted it.

How many calls does your restaurant miss in a typical dinner shift?

https://wiserootsllc.com/blog/mcdonalds-archy-ai-drive-thru-bilingual-restaurants

Something worth knowing about this week: three separate AI agents breached real systems in a two-week window, including one that accessed non-public Australian government files and another that autonomously guessed a password and moved through three companies' systems. The coverage is treating each as its own story. They're not. They're the same pattern.

The practical takeaway: if you have any AI tool that can send, book, cancel, update, or respond on your behalf, the question to ask right now is what it's allowed to do when its first approach fails. Not what it's supposed to do. Those are two different things.

Do you actually know the answer for the tools running in your business today?

The CEO of ElevenLabs, the company powering AI phone calls for Klarna and a growing list of governments, told TechCrunch this week that businesses should be telling customers when they're talking to a bot. He sells the bots. That's worth paying attention to.

His advice is practical: if there's a 30-minute wait for a human, offer the choice. Customers almost always pick the AI, and then they're impressed. One sentence at the start of the call does the job.

Several U.S. states are already moving on disclosure requirements for AI phone calls. Getting ahead of it now is easier than retrofitting trust after someone feels tricked.

If you're using any AI voice on your phones, even for after-hours calls or appointment reminders, is it disclosed?

https://wiserootsllc.com/blog/elevenlabs-ceo-ai-voice-disclosure-local-business