Perplexity AI, Gemini and Claude: how they pick a dental practice

When a patient asks Perplexity AI, Gemini, Claude or ChatGPT to suggest a dental practice nearby, the assistant does not consult a secret list. It runs web searches, reads what it finds, and names the practices whose details it can confirm. So the question for a dental practice is simple: when an assistant goes looking in your town, what does it find about you, and is it right?

This guide explains where each of the main assistants gets its local facts, as the companies themselves describe it, what you can control, and how to check what they currently say about your practice.

The short answer

Every assistant with web access answers a local question in roughly the same way. It turns the patient's question into one or more searches, pulls back pages and listings, and writes an answer with links. The practices it names are the ones that appear consistently in the sources it reads, with clear facts it can repeat: what you treat, where you are, when you are open, whether you see NHS or private patients, and what other people say about you.

That means the work is mostly the same work that wins ordinary local search. A complete Google Business Profile, a website that states the facts plainly, consistent details across the web and a steady flow of genuine reviews. The difference is that each assistant reads a slightly different set of sources, so a gap that does not hurt you on Google can still leave you out of an answer elsewhere.

Where each assistant gets local information

The companies publish only part of how their products work, and they change often. This table sticks to what each one says in its own documentation as of October 2026.

Gemini

Google's Gemini Apps Help says Gemini uses public information from Google Maps to find places such as businesses, and to get addresses, descriptions, websites, ratings and opening hours. For a dental practice, that makes your Google Business Profile the single most important input to Gemini. If your hours, phone number or website link are wrong on your profile, Gemini will repeat the mistake.

Google also offers a robots.txt token called Google-Extended. Google's crawler documentation says it controls whether your content is used to train future Gemini models and for grounding answers in Gemini Apps, and that it does not affect your inclusion in Google Search. Most practices have no reason to block it.

ChatGPT

OpenAI's help page on searching the web with ChatGPT says ChatGPT search sometimes sends rewritten queries to partner search providers, and that it uses general location from a user's IP address, shared with those providers, to make local results more accurate. OpenAI's crawler documentation says sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links.

Perplexity AI

Perplexity says it searches the internet in real time and that each answer includes numbered citations to its sources, according to its help centre. Its bot documentation says PerplexityBot exists to surface and link websites in Perplexity's search results, is not used to train AI models, and should be allowed in robots.txt if you want to appear.

Claude

Anthropic says Claude web search is available globally on all plans and that answers include direct citations. Anthropic's crawler page lists three agents: ClaudeBot for model training, Claude-User for pages fetched when a user asks a question, and Claude-SearchBot for search quality. It warns that blocking Claude-SearchBot may reduce your visibility in user search results.

Perplexity AI vs Claude vs ChatGPT: does the difference matter to a practice?

For a patient, the differences are about style. Perplexity leads with sources, Claude and ChatGPT answer conversationally and search when the question needs it, and Gemini leans on Google's own data. For your practice, the differences matter in one practical way: each reads a different mix of sources. Gemini will rarely contradict your Google Business Profile. ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude may lean more on your website, directories, the NHS website and local press.

So a practice can look strong in Gemini and weak in Perplexity, or the other way round. The fix is not to optimise for one assistant. It is to make sure the same facts appear everywhere an assistant might look.

What you can control

1. Let the search crawlers in. Open yoursite.co.uk/robots.txt and check that nothing blocks Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot or Claude-SearchBot. Some website security settings and plugins block unfamiliar bots by default. Blocking training crawlers such as GPTBot or ClaudeBot is a separate decision. OpenAI says each of its bot settings is independent, so you can allow OAI-SearchBot while blocking GPTBot, and Anthropic lists ClaudeBot and Claude-SearchBot as separate crawlers.
2. Get your Google Business Profile complete and correct. Primary category, hours, holiday hours, phone, website, services and photos. Gemini reads it directly and other assistants often find it through search.
3. State the facts on your website in plain text. A page for each main treatment that says what it is, who it suits, whether it is NHS or private and the starting price where you publish one. The GDC's guidance on advertising already requires you to make clear whether the practice is NHS, mixed or wholly private, which is exactly the kind of fact assistants repeat.
4. Keep your details identical everywhere. Name, address and phone number on your site, Google, Bing, Apple Maps, the NHS website, Facebook and dental directories. An assistant that finds two phone numbers may pick the wrong one, or leave you out.
5. Build genuine reviews. Assistants summarise what people say. Google's own guidance says more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking, and the same reviews give assistants something to quote. Our guide to working out a review target shows how to set yours from the practices already holding the map in your town.
6. Earn real local mentions. A write-up in the local paper, a listing on the parish or town website, a sponsorship of a local club. Google's guide to generative AI features warns that seeking inauthentic mentions "isn't as helpful as it might seem", so do not buy them.

What you do not need to do

A lot of advice sold to practices under names like "AI search optimisation" is not supported by the companies that run the assistants. Google's guide says plainly that you do not need llms.txt files, special AI markup or content chopped into small chunks for its AI features, and that Google Search ignores such files. It also says structured data is not required for generative AI search, though it remains useful for rich results. The other companies publish less, but none of them asks for special files either. What they ask for is that you let their search crawler in.

How to check what AI assistants say about your practice

There is no single dashboard for every assistant, so check by hand on a fixed day each month and keep a simple record.

1. Write five questions a patient would ask. For example "dentist near [town] taking NHS patients", "best private dentist in [town]", "emergency dentist [town] Saturday", "composite bonding [town]" and "[your practice name] reviews".
2. Ask each assistant in a fresh chat. Use Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Copilot. Note which practices are named, in what order, and whether your details are right.
3. Click the sources. Where an assistant gets something wrong about you, the cited source usually shows why. Fix the source, not the assistant.
4. Use the official reports where they exist. Google Search Console now has a Generative AI performance report showing impressions of your links in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country and device, though not queries or clicks. Bing Webmaster Tools has an AI Performance report showing citations of your pages in Copilot and Bing's AI summaries.

Answers vary from one session to the next, so look for patterns over several months rather than reacting to one answer. If you would rather not do this by hand, Practice Radar's Growth plan checks whether AI assistants name your practice.

What is Perplexity AI good for in a practice?

Beyond being a place patients search, Perplexity and Claude are useful research tools for a practice owner because they show their sources. Sensible uses include summarising a new NHS England guidance document, comparing equipment specifications, or drafting questions for a supplier meeting. Treat the answer as a starting point and open the cited source before acting on anything. And never paste patient information into a consumer AI tool. Health data is special category data under UK GDPR, which needs extra protection.

When an assistant gets your practice wrong

Every one of these products warns that it can make mistakes. Google's own help says AI Mode doesn't always get it right. If an assistant says you are closed on Saturdays when you are not, or that you do not take NHS patients when you do:

• Find the source it cites and correct it, whether that is your Google Business Profile, an old directory listing or an outdated page on your own site.
• Update your NHS website profile if you hold an NHS contract, so the "accepting new patients" status is current.
• Use the feedback button in the assistant to report the error.
• Check again a few weeks later. Assistants that search the web live usually pick up the fix once the source changes.

Where this fits in your marketing

AI assistants are another place patients look, not a replacement for Google. The practices they name tend to be the ones that already do the basics of local SEO for dentists well: accurate listings, useful treatment pages and genuine reviews. Get those right and you improve your chances in every assistant at once, rather than chasing each one separately. If you want a starting point, the free search audit shows where your practice stands in Google today.