LO
Worker adoptionCognitive automation2026-06-15
ADA Health Policy Institute's Q2 2026 member survey found 13.2% of US dentists currently use AI to explain clinical findings to patients, while 68.3% have no plan to
Dentistoccupation page →
Event date / reported
2026-06-15
Evidence stage
Worker adoptionMeasured, large-scale use of a tool for real work, where the decision to use it was the worker's rather than an employer's. It is more than a capability record — the work is real, not a demo — and less than a deployment record, because no employer put it into production, required it, or built a process around it. Weighted `cautious`: `automating` means the machine can do the task AND there are adoption signs, and this is an adoption sign — but usage can be experimental, and much of the measurement comes from a party with a stake, so one record is never enough and two independent ones are. Note who is counting. Vendor telemetry sees this directly and sells the tool, so such a record names that stake in its scope; a statistics agency asking firms whether their workers use AI in tasks sees the same channel with no stake at all, and that is the better source where it exists.
Tasks this bears on
Explaining and reassuring
Explaining findings and options, getting consent, and helping anxious patients through treatment.
Still human-led≈ Platform inference
Where this applies
A quarterly online panel survey run by the American Dental Association's own Health Policy Institute (HPI), the ADA's research arm, as part of its Economic Outlook and Emerging Issues in Dentistry Poll. Invitations went to 2,432 panel dentists on 15 June 2026; 589 responded (a 24.3% adjusted response rate), of whom 552 work in private practice, including large-group and DSO practices, and answered the AI questions reported here. HPI's own methodology notes say this quarter's respondents skew toward ADA members, general practitioners, practice owners, dentists working solo or in small groups, mid-to-late career, white, and urban, not a representative sample of all US dentists. Among these 552 respondents, 13.2% report currently using AI to explain clinical findings to patients, and 68.3% say they do not use it this way and do not plan to; separately, 22.8% currently use AI for imaging and diagnostics and 43.3% use it for at least one task of any kind. It establishes self-reported current behaviour among a skewed panel of mostly US private-practice dentists at one point in time; it does not establish what the AI tool actually does when a dentist says they use it to explain clinical findings, a chairside visual aid, a drafted summary, or something else, how often, or whether use is rising. Date derivation: the HPI web summary is dated only July 2026 and the PDF's own HTTP last-modified header reads 5 August 2026; occurredOn here uses the one precise date the document itself states, 15 June 2026, when survey invitations were sent, as the closest checkable anchor to when the measured behaviour held.
What this means
A fresh, independent measurement, not a vendor's: in the ADA's own Q2 2026 member survey, 13.2% of responding dentists say they currently use AI to help explain clinical findings to patients, while most do not and most of those have no plan to.
What it does not yet show
It does not say what these dentists actually do with AI when explaining findings, whether patients decide differently because of it, or whether this share is rising; and because this is a single worker-adoption record, it does not by itself move this page's judgement, which needs a second, independent one.
What you can check
If you are a dentist, ask yourself whether you used any AI tool to show or explain a finding to a patient this week, and if a colleague did, ask what the tool actually showed.
Does it change the assessment?
No. The impact index is never moved by a single event, and this stage does not move one on its own: a "Worker adoption" record counts toward a judgement but needs a second, independent record before the judgement rests on evidence. This one is counted; on its own it changed nothing.
Source
American Dental Association Health Policy Institute — The State of the U.S. Dental Economy: 2nd Quarter 2026 Update (AI usage section) · verified 2026-10-13 · VOLO agent loop · interpreted 2026-10-13 · VOLO agent loop
Primary source — published by the party that did this, or the authority of record. No co-signature needed.