When patients look for a dentist today, it’s becoming increasingly common for them to type or ask a question into a search engine or AI tool, then read a short AI summary or listen to a voice response that suggests one or two practices.
In many cases, that first answer shapes their direction before they ever look at rankings or reviews.
This shift shows up in real data. A recent AP-NORC poll found that about 60% of U.S. adults already use AI tools to search for information, and that number rises to 74% among adults under 30. A growing share of patients now encounter dental practices through AI-generated answers, not just traditional search results.
That change creates uncertainty. You may rank well for important keywords and still feel unsure why your practice appears less often in AI-driven results. At the same time, you may hear new terms such as Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), generative search optimization, or AI-driven search visibility, and wonder whether this reflects a real shift or simply another label layered on top of SEO.
At Titan Web Agency, we work with practices like yours that are trying to understand how AI affects visibility and what actually helps them show up. Our approach to GEO for dentists builds on local SEO, which still supplies many of the signals AI systems use. What has changed is how those signals are interpreted, summarized, and presented when generating patient answers.
Continue reading How to Improve Dental Visibility in Local Search Results with GEO.
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