AI Is Writing Both Sides of Dental Complaints

Why it matters

A large-scale analysis of millions of reviews covering every US dental practice found that AI-writing markers, nearly flat in the two years after ChatGPT arrived, surged sharply beginning in 2025. Complaints now show AI signs at a rate far above the earlier baseline, and roughly a quarter of practice replies to negative reviews reads as machine-written in blind testing, where such replies were once rare. Most striking, exchanges where both the patient's complaint and the practice's response carry AI markers have grown from a handful of cases to thousands, spread across many distinct practices. The researchers, publishing the toothlocal AI Review Index, also show the trend is not driven solely by em dashes: stock phrases associated with chatbot output climbed even when dashes were excluded. The findings matter because they show generative AI reshaping ordinary consumer communication on both sides of a transaction, complicating how readers should weigh online reviews as evidence of real experiences.