Google's AI Overviews are reshaping the way patients search for dental care online, often pushing traditional results further down the page. This guide explains what that means for your practice and what you can do about it.
If you have searched for anything on Google recently, you may have noticed something new sitting above the organic results: a boxed, AI-generated summary that attempts to answer the query without the user ever clicking a link. This is Google's AI Overview, and it is already appearing for a wide range of health and local service searches in the UK. For dental practice owners, it raises an urgent question: if a potential patient asks Google "where can I find a private dentist in Sheffield?" and an AI-generated answer appears before any practice websites, how do you make sure your practice is part of that answer rather than buried beneath it?
This article explains how Google AI Overviews work, why they matter specifically for dental practices across South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire, and what practical steps you can take to remain visible as search behaviour continues to shift.
Google AI Overviews (previously trialled under the name Search Generative Experience) use a large language model to synthesise information from multiple web sources and produce a direct, conversational summary at the top of the search results page. They are designed to give users a fast answer without requiring them to visit several websites in turn.
They are not the only AI-powered discovery tool your prospective patients are using. Platforms such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity all work on a similar principle: they read, analyse and summarise publicly available information to answer questions. Together, these tools are changing how people research everything from complex financial decisions to finding a local dentist. The discipline of optimising your practice's presence across all of these AI-powered surfaces is known as Generative Engine Optimisation, or GEO. You can read more about what GEO means for dental practices on our GEO service page.
Traditional search engine optimisation gets your practice's website to appear in the blue-link results. That still matters. But AI Overviews occupy a distinct space above those results. A patient who gets a satisfactory AI-generated summary may never scroll down to the organic results at all, let alone click through to your website.
This is particularly acute for dental practices because patients tend to ask conversational, question-based queries: "What is the difference between composite bonding and veneers?", "Is Invisalign available on the NHS?", or "How much does a dental implant cost in Doncaster?" These are precisely the kinds of questions AI Overviews are designed to answer. If your website content does not clearly and authoritatively address these questions, an AI tool is unlikely to draw on it when constructing a summary.
There is also a local dimension to consider. Searches with clear local intent, such as "emergency dentist in Rotherham" or "teeth whitening near Chesterfield", may trigger Google AI Overviews that reference specific practices. Whether your practice is mentioned, or a competitor is, can depend significantly on how well your online presence is structured and how trustworthy your information appears to an AI model.
If your practice is already struggling to appear in standard Google results, the AI Overview challenge is compounded. Our article on why your dental practice isn't ranking on Google (and the 6 fixes) covers the foundational issues that need to be resolved before any GEO strategy can be effective.
It is important to be honest about what we do and do not know here. Google has not published a definitive list of ranking factors for AI Overviews, and the internal workings of tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity are not publicly disclosed. What we can say with reasonable confidence, based on how these systems are designed and how they behave in practice, is that they tend to favour sources that share certain characteristics.
AI tools are trained to prioritise sources that demonstrate expertise, authority and trustworthiness, concepts that map closely to Google's long-standing E-E-A-T framework (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). For a dental practice, this can mean having your GDC registration clearly displayed, publishing content written or reviewed by a named clinician, and earning positive reviews and citations from reputable local directories and dental associations.
AI models parse and summarise content far more effectively when it is logically structured. Pages that use clear headings, concise paragraphs and specific answers to common questions are more likely to be drawn upon than dense, unstructured blocks of text. If your website's treatment pages simply list a service name followed by a promotional paragraph, they are unlikely to be useful to an AI trying to construct an informative summary.
For geographically specific queries, AI tools appear to consider the same kinds of local signals that influence traditional local SEO: Google Business Profile data, NAP consistency (name, address and phone number across directories), local backlinks and review volume and quality. A well-maintained Google Business Profile is therefore not just a local SEO asset but a potential input for AI-generated local recommendations. Our guide to Google Business Profile optimisation for dental practices covers the key optimisation steps in detail.
Perplexity, Gemini and similar tools index a wide range of sources, not just your website. That includes review platforms such as Google, Trustpilot and Doctify, dental directories, social media profiles and press coverage. Practices with a consistent, accurate and positive presence across multiple platforms give AI tools more material to work with when compiling a trustworthy answer.
The following actions are reasonable, evidence-informed steps that can help your practice become more visible in AI-generated search summaries. They are not guarantees; no agency or consultant can guarantee that an AI tool will cite or recommend your practice. But they represent best practice for the current search landscape.
Review each treatment page and ask: does this page clearly answer the questions a patient would ask about this treatment? If the answer is no, rewrite the content to be genuinely informative. Include a short FAQ section on each page covering common patient questions. Use clear H2 and H3 headings so both human readers and AI systems can navigate the content easily.
A blog or news section that consistently answers real patient questions, for example the difference between NHS and private dental care, what to expect from a specific procedure, or how to find an NHS dentist in your local area, gives AI tools a broader base of useful, citable content. Thin or infrequent content is unlikely to be useful to an AI model constructing a summary.
Ensure your profile is complete, accurate and regularly updated with posts, photos and responses to reviews. This is one of the more direct signals Google can use when generating AI-powered local answers. If you have not yet optimised your profile, this is one of the highest-priority tasks for any dental practice.
Review volume, recency and sentiment all influence how trustworthy a practice appears to both human searchers and AI systems. Develop a consistent process for inviting satisfied patients to leave a review, and respond professionally to all reviews, positive and critical.
Whilst GEO is increasingly important, it is worth noting that paid search remains a highly effective way to capture patient demand in the short term, particularly while organic and AI visibility is being built. Our article on Is Google Ads Worth It for Dentists? offers a balanced view of where paid search fits for practices at different stages. For practices with strong local competition, such as those in larger urban areas, our Dental SEO in Wakefield: a market overview for practices illustrates the kind of local analysis that should inform any digital strategy.
Many practice owners manage elements of their own digital marketing, particularly Google Business Profile updates or occasional social media posts. That is entirely reasonable. But the convergence of traditional SEO, local SEO, content strategy and GEO represents a significant increase in complexity. Each discipline has its own technical requirements, and they need to work together coherently to produce results.
A specialist dental marketing agency brings three things that are difficult to replicate in-house. First, sector knowledge: understanding what patients in South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire are actually searching for, and how those queries are evolving as AI tools become more widely used. Second, technical capability: the ability to audit your site's structure, identify content gaps, implement schema markup and ensure your local signals are consistent across dozens of directories. Third, ongoing monitoring: the AI search landscape is changing rapidly, and a dedicated team can track how your practice's visibility is shifting and respond accordingly.
It is worth being clear that no agency can guarantee your practice will be cited in an AI Overview or recommended by ChatGPT. Anyone who makes that claim is overstating what is currently possible. What a good agency can do is give your practice the strongest possible foundation so that when AI tools draw on local dental information, yours is a credible, well-structured, trustworthy source to draw from.
If you are unsure how your practice currently performs across both traditional search and AI-generated results, a structured audit is the logical starting point. It will identify where your content is weak, where your local signals are inconsistent and where the most immediate opportunities lie. You can request a free SEO audit for your dental practice to get a clear picture of where things stand before committing to any strategy.
If you would prefer to talk through your situation directly, the team at Dental Marketing Pros works exclusively with dental practices across South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire. We are happy to have a straightforward conversation about what is and is not working for your practice, without any pressure to commit. Get in touch to arrange a conversation at a time that suits you.
Running a practice in or around Barnsley? Our page on GEO and AI search for Barnsley practices shows how we apply this locally. We also work across South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire.
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