A robot dentist sounds ideal for a comedy film Jetsons-style cartoon, but it could be your reality sooner than you think. AI dental technology developer Perceptive has revealed that one of its AI-powered robots has completed a dental procedure on a human without supervision.
Perceptive’s robotic dentistry system combines AI-driven 3D imaging with a specialized robotic arm built for restorative dental procedures. Perceptive spent years developing the system to match and even surpass the speed and precision of human dentists, with an eye toward reducing chair time.
Perceptive’s AI can measure and analyze information about a patient to diagnose problems and devise a treatment. Perceptive’s handheld intraoral scanner takes 3D images of a patient’s teeth and mouth, and can even see beneath the surface of a tooth. Perceptive’s AI algorithms analyze the data to create a treatment plan that the robotic arm can complete. For now, the automated procedures the robot can perform focus on restorative dental work like crowns. The company boasts that the entire process can be completed in just 15 minutes. By comparison, manual crown placements typically take at least two-hour sessions.
“We are delighted to have successfully completed the world’s first fully automated robotic dental procedure,” Perceptive CEO Dr. Chris Ciriello said in a statement. rack. “This medical breakthrough improves the precision and efficiency of dental procedures and democratizes access to better dental care, for improved patient experience and clinical outcomes. We look forward to improving our system and developing groundbreaking scalable, fully automated dental healthcare solutions for patients.”
AI Tooth Fairy?
The implications of AI-powered dentistry are potentially enormous. Automating the diagnostic and treatment processes and completing procedures at that speed not only means better patient experiences, but also an opportunity for many more people to have their dental needs taken care of than would be feasible today.
The public will be wary at first. However, if the combination of AI and robotics proves consistently successful, it could become even more common than other computer-assisted medical procedures, such as the lasers programmed by computers to perform certain eye surgeries. In fact, the use of AI and robotics is likely to minimize the chance of human error, a common problem with manual dental procedures.
The precision of the robotic arm, guided by the AI-driven treatment plan, allows procedures to be performed with a level of accuracy that is difficult to achieve with human hands alone. A well-functioning robot is also a boon to the dental profession. The AI robot could perform many of the more routine procedures that, from a human perspective, would still require a lot of effort. That frees up the human dentist to focus on the more complex and fraught cases that the AI could not trust.
However, widespread adoption won’t happen quickly. Equipment and training costs, not to mention regulatory hurdles, will likely pose some obstacles to your transition to a robotic dentist. That said, a successful, fully automated dental procedure is a clear indication of the direction the industry is headed. As AI and robotics continue to evolve, it’s likely we’ll see further advancements in dental care automation.