Not in the Room: Dentistry, AI Policy, and the Cost of Absence

[00:00:02] This is the TechDental Podcast, the strategic intelligence hub for leaders shaping the dental industry. We break down how AI, data, and operating discipline drive performance and scale. I'm Dr. Randeep, let's dive in. Welcome back to TechDental. Today's episode is a special report on a subject I'm really passionate about, science diplomacy.

[00:00:31] Because in seven days I'll be in Istanbul for a science partnership closing ceremony. And the experience of preparing for that trip has sharpened something I've been thinking about for a while. For the past six months I've been involved in a British Council science partnership program connecting the UK and Turkish researchers. I cannot share details of the work or the participants.

[00:00:57] What I can say is that the experience has given me a ground-level view of how science diplomacy actually operates. And what it has shown me is a gap that this industry has not yet named clearly enough. The UK has a serious AI ambition. UKRI committed £1.6 billion to the AI sector between 2026 and 2030. The NHS 10-year health plan published last July has a single headline goal.

[00:01:26] To become the world's most AI-enabled health system. The government's language in official documents is not incremental. It is transformational. And yet, when you sit inside these conversations, when you read the policy frameworks and the investment strategies and the bilateral science agreements, you notice something that nobody seems willing to say out loud. Dentistry is not in the room.

[00:01:58] Primary care broadly is underrepresented, but dentistry is almost entirely absent. The NHS AI ambition is built around acute hospitals, cancer pathways, imaging at scale and drug discovery. Those are truly legitimate priorities. But NHS dentistry delivered 35 million courses of treatment in 2024-25 alone. It generates clinical data at a volume that most verticals would find extraordinary.

[00:02:27] And it sits at the intersection of preventable disease, health inequality and community access in a way that maps almost perfectly onto the NHS's own stated strategic priorities. The gap is not because dentistry lacks opportunity. The gap exists because dentistry has not yet sent a credible voice into the room where these decisions get made. That is what science diplomacy is actually about.

[00:02:55] Not declarations, not summits, not press releases. The practical work of building relationships across borders and sectors so that your discipline, your technology, your clinical evidence has a seat at the table when the infrastructure gets designed. The British Council's International Science Partnerships Fund, managed by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology,

[00:03:22] is a live example of how this works in practice. It funds bilateral research collaboration between UK institutions and partner countries, including Turkey. It is not flashy, it does not generate headlines, but it is exactly the kind of institutional plumbing that determines which verticals get embedded into the next generation of health AI infrastructure, and which ones get retrofitted later at significantly greater cost.

[00:03:50] Turkey is a serious market for this conversation. It has a young, large population, a rapidly expanding private dental sector, and a government that has been investing deliberately in health technology infrastructure. The UK-Turkey bilateral relationship in research and innovation is active and growing. And yet, the dental-AI dimension of that relationship is at present essentially zero. I want to be direct about what I think the opportunity is here,

[00:04:20] because I think people in this industry often mistake the scale of what is available. The UK is currently designing its AI health infrastructure. The decisions being made right now about which verticals get data frameworks, which clinical pathways get AI co-pilots, which conditions get included in the single patient record architecture, will shape what's possible in dentistry for the next 15 years. That's not hyperbole.

[00:04:50] This is how infrastructure gets built. If dentistry is not represented in that design process, it will be added later under constraints that were not designed with dentistry in mind, at a cost that will be passed on to practices, patients, and ultimately the public. The people who understand this best are not sitting in dental schools. They are in the decent AI ecosystem, in the UK RI program offices,

[00:05:19] in NHS England's digital transformation teams, and increasingly in the bilateral science partnerships that are now quietly extending UK AI influence into markets like Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Africa. Tech Dental exists in part to be the platform that connects those worlds, not as a commentator, as a participant. I'll be back in the next few weeks with an update on this journey. I hope you'll join us then.

[00:05:49] If this episode has prompted a thought, a connection, or a conversation, I would genuinely like to hear it. You can find all the details at techdental.com. I'm Dr. Rundeep, and I'll see you next week. You've been listening to the Tech Dental Podcast, strategic intelligence for dental leaders navigating structural change. If you're responsible for growth, performance, or long-term value in this industry, make sure you're subscribed. I'm your host, Dr. Rundeep.

[00:06:19] We'll see you next week.