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Dental AI insights

Practice tips, product updates, and everything dental AI. From the Marea team.

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The Shift to 'Zero-Retention': What Dental Software Actually Does With Your Patient Data

Most dental software meets HIPAA. The real difference is how much patient data each vendor stores, how long they keep it, and how many systems it passes through. Here's what to ask.

Marea Team·June 5, 2026·8 min read
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April 24, 20265 min read

How Dental Practices Lose 2+ Hours a Day (and How to Get It Back)

Between missed calls, manual intake, and after-hours charting, most practices lose two or more hours a day to work that never touches patient care. Here's where the time actually goes, and what a coordinated workflow looks like instead.

April 8, 20264 min read

AI Dental Workflow Comparison: All-in-One Platforms vs. Standalone Tools

Most dental practices run five or six disconnected systems. Here's how all-in-one AI platforms compare to standalone tools, and why the difference matters more than you think.

April 6, 20264 min read

AI Clinical Notes Dental: Why You've Normalized Staying Late for Charting

Most dentists think they spend five minutes per patient on notes. When they actually time it, it's closer to 10-12 minutes. Across a full day, that adds up to hours of work after the last patient leaves.

April 2, 20265 min read

AI Receptionist vs Answering Service for Dental Practices: Which One Actually Books Patients?

Most dental practices use a traditional answering service to handle the phones after the front desk goes home. It picks up, takes a message, and sends an email. The problem isn't that they don't answer. It's that they can't book the appointment.

March 14, 20263 min read

Dentists Are Worried AI Will Get Things Wrong. They're Right to Ask.

The most common fear we hear from dental practices isn't that AI will replace anyone. It's that AI will make a mistake and the practice will be responsible. It's a fair concern. Here's how we think about it.

March 10, 20263 min read

The 7pm Call Problem Nobody Talks About

Most dental practices lose 3–5 new patients every week to a single predictable problem: the call that comes in after the front desk leaves. We looked at the data from our own customers to understand what's actually happening.

March 7, 20263 min read

We're Not Replacing Your Front Desk. Here's What We're Actually Doing.

Every dental AI company says they're not replacing anyone. Most practices don't believe it. The real answer is more specific than the usual reassurance — and more honest.

March 3, 20264 min read

We Asked 50 Dentists What They Actually Think About AI Notes. Here's What They Said.

Not a survey. Real conversations with 50 dentists who had used AI clinical documentation — some Marea customers, some not. The answers were more candid than we expected.

February 27, 20263 min read

Chicago Midwinter 2026: What the Busiest Dental Show in North America Taught Us

The Chicago Dental Society Midwinter Meeting is the biggest dental conference in North America. We came back from three days on the floor with sore feet, a full notes doc, and a sharper sense of what practices actually need.

February 24, 20264 min read

What We Got Wrong About How Dentists Would Use AI

We built Marea with a set of assumptions about what dental practices needed and how they'd adopt new technology. Some of those assumptions were right. A few were pretty wrong. Here's an honest account.

February 18, 20263 min read

Why Referral Letters Take 20 Minutes (And Why They Don't Have To)

A referral letter is three paragraphs. So why does writing one take most dentists the better part of half an hour? We asked. The answers were more interesting than we expected.

February 12, 20263 min read

Dental AI Is 3 Years Behind Every Other Industry. That Gap Is Closing Fast.

Law firms have AI. Accounting practices have AI. Hospital systems have AI. Dental practices, by and large, don't. Why the lag, and what's different about 2026.

February 5, 20263 min read

Yankee Dental 2026: Notes from Boston

Yankee Dental Congress brings a particular kind of attendee — Northeast practices, independent operators, a crowd that's been around long enough to be skeptical of everything. We liked it.

January 30, 20263 min read

The HIPAA Question Every Dentist Asks Us

Before any dental practice signs up, they ask about HIPAA. It's the right question. Here's exactly how we answer it — including the parts that are more complicated than a simple yes.

January 22, 20263 min read

We Exhibited at Rocky Mountain Dental for the First Time. Here's What Happened.

Marea's first conference booth — Denver, January 2026. What we heard, what surprised us, and why one question from a practice manager in the first hour set the tone for the whole weekend.

January 14, 20264 min read

The Practice That Said No to Marea Twice (Then Called Us Back)

A two-location practice in the Pacific Northwest turned us down in March 2025, again in July, and then reached out in November asking to start immediately. What changed — and what it tells us about how dental practices actually adopt new technology.