I’m a dentist and a mom who keeps granola bars in every drawer. I like tools that help my team and don’t make a mess. DentalX AI got my attention because it promises “a second set of eyes” on X-rays. Sounds nice, right? But does it actually help? Short answer: yes, mostly. Long answer: let me explain. If you're after the feature list straight from the source, the DentalX AI website lays it out clearly.
If you’re curious about how AI keeps raising the bar across industries, the annual Bot Prize competition is a fun yardstick for seeing just how close machines can come to human-level smarts.
For a look at how AI can simplify at-home hygiene, you might like my two-week test drive of Bubbline AI.
What I Used It For
We ran DentalX AI in four ops at my mid-size practice. It reads X-rays and marks spots that might be decay, bone loss, calculus, or faulty margins. It doesn’t diagnose. It just points. Then we choose what’s real.
It worked with our sensors and played fine with Open Dental. No deep plug-in. More like a screen overlay and a side panel. X-rays loaded in about 3 to 5 seconds. Fast enough that no one sighed.
Real Cases That Stuck With Me
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Patient L., 42, routine check. AI flagged a tiny shadow between two molars on the upper left. I didn’t see it at first. The box made me look again. We checked with an explorer and air. It was early caries. We caught it before it got angry. Patient said, “I like that robot.” I said, “It’s not a robot.” Then we both laughed.
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Patient M., 68, full mouth series. AI showed bone level lines near lower right molars and marked “possible bone loss.” I used the picture while I explained periodontitis. He nodded. He booked scaling that day. He brought me a bag of oranges the week after. Sweet man.
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Teen J., 15, crowding and braces on the way. AI over-marked calculus on the lower front teeth. It was mostly overlap from the image. Not a big deal, but it did make my hygienist grumble. We turned down the sensitivity for those views. Better after that.
The Good Stuff
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Chairside trust bumps up. Patients see the green boxes and go, “Oh, I get it.” It turns guesswork into a picture.
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Case acceptance went up for us. Not magic. But when I showed the marked areas, people said yes faster, especially on crowns and SRP.
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Time saver for notes. The tool fills parts of my clinical note with tooth numbers and reasons. I still edit. But it shaved 2 to 3 minutes per chart. On a busy day, that adds up.
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Training was quick. We did a 45-minute Zoom, then a cheat sheet. My assistant made a sticker on the monitor: “Boxes don’t mean it’s bad. We still check.”
The Rough Spots
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It can over-call on older plates or noisy films. Think grainy bitewings from our backup unit. The AI gets jumpy.
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Patients sometimes think it’s a diagnosis. We had to say, “This helps us see. We still decide.”
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Alerts can feel loud on a full mouth series. Many boxes. We changed the color style and toned it down.
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No offline mode. We had one internet hiccup, and it paused. Not the end of the world, but I noticed.
Setup, Without the Drama
Install took about an hour. We did it on a Friday after lunch. The hardest part? Getting a stubborn driver to play nice with Op #3’s sensor hub. Support answered chat in about 20 minutes and stayed until it worked. My front desk brought cookies. I think that helped morale more than the driver fix.
How It Felt Day To Day
Most days, it’s simple. We take the X-ray. The boxes pop up. I tap a tooth on the screen and add a quick note. If I’m busy, my assistant marks it and I review. That’s it. By week two, I stopped thinking about it. It was just part of the flow, like suction tips and bib chains.
Price And Support
We paid a monthly fee for 4 ops. There was a small charge per extra study after a cap. Not cheap, not wild. Think, “one small crown a month covers it” money. Chat support was solid. Email replies came same day. They sent short videos when we asked how to tweak settings. Clear, not fluffy.
Head-To-Head Vibe
We’ve tried two other AI tools before. One felt too slow. One looked pretty but didn’t help with notes. DentalX AI sits in a sweet spot: quick, useful, and not in the way. That said, I wish it had an “offline light” mode and better filters for grainy films. I haven’t used it long term, but friends who run Dentrix swear by the Dentrix Ascend Detect AI plug-in, so that may be another option if you’re already in that ecosystem.
Little Things I Liked
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You can toggle each finding type on and off. Handy when training a new assistant.
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It exports a clean image with markings for case presentations. Great for email follow-ups.
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Keyboard shortcuts. My left hand learned them fast; my right hand kept holding the mirror.
Things I’d Ask Them To Fix
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Add a clear patient-facing view with softer colors. Less “alarm,” more “let’s look together.”
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Give us presets: “New patient,” “Recall,” “Ortho.” Different needs, same tool.
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A one-click “doctor reviewed” stamp that drops into the chart note. It saves clicks.
Who It’s For
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Busy general practices that take lots of bitewings.
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New grads who want a gentle safety net.
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Offices that teach patients with visuals. If you present care chairside, this helps.
Speaking of younger demographics, I see plenty of college students whose online habits influence how they perceive health advice. If you’d like a quick peek into the kind of social-media-driven culture and aesthetics that shape their attention spans, you can scroll through this gallery of college girls — spending a minute there will show you the memes, slang, and image styles that resonate with that age group, which you can in turn borrow when crafting more relatable patient-education posts or waiting-room slides.
Some of my single patients in their late twenties and thirties also ask for fun, low-pressure ways to meet people offline. I point them toward Speed Dating Des Plaines, where well-organized, timed conversations let locals meet a dozen potential matches in one evening—far more engaging than another night of endless swiping.
Maybe skip it if your X-rays are often low quality or your internet is moody. You’ll get annoyed.
If your patients have fur and whiskers instead of premolars, you can see how AI performs in a clinic setting by reading my hands-on review of NeroVet AI.
My Bottom Line
DentalX AI helped my team catch early issues and explain care without a speech. It didn’t replace judgment. It nudged it. We saved a bit of time. We won a few more yeses. And no, it’s not perfect. But you know what? It made the day smoother, and that matters when the 3 pm patient shows up chewing ice.
Would I keep it? Yes. With the sensitivity tuned, a clear script for patients, and a cookie jar for the hard days.
—Kayla Sox