“It’s Still Really Early”: How Connor Ludlow’s Annie AI Reveals Why 100 Missed Calls Becoming 100 New Appointments Is Just the Beginning of AI’s Impact on Dental Practices

What happens when a software engineer who never planned to work in dentistry ends up as the CTO of a dental call center for seven years, learns the industry inside and out, takes a break to work with VC firms right when ChatGPT explodes onto the scene, helps companies understand this wild new AI technology amid the FOMO, starts building an AI CRM to pull insights from data, gets asked by dental connections if they can hook it up to practice management software, discovers they can do similar things in the dental space, and realizes the real opportunity isn’t just pulling data—it’s building an AI digital coworker that handles the monotonous tasks that convert leads and schedule appointments when offices can’t? Connor Ludlow does exactly that, and after two and a half years of building, iterating, and working with thousands of dental practices, he’s discovered something that most AI startups and dentists get wrong: AI isn’t a silver bullet, and treating it like one is exactly how you end up with hallucinating chatbots, bad patient experiences, and hype that doesn’t match reality.

<>

Key Moments

  • 01:24 – Connor’s background: Software engineer → CTO of dental call center (7 years) → VC/AI consulting → founder of Annie (2.5 years)
  • 06:43 – Annie’s evolution: Started as AI CRM for insights, evolved into digital coworker handling appointment scheduling, confirmations, recare, and low-stakes tasks
  • 08:06 – The reality of AI today: It’s a tool like the internet or calculator, not the Terminator—there’s a huge gap between what AI can do in the future and what it does right now
  • 10:46 – The digital coworker approach: Let humans handle emergencies (dangling teeth = transfer to human), let AI handle low-stakes routine tasks (appointment confirmations, insurance questions)
  • 15:26 – Patient acceptance data: 20% asked for human at launch, now 14% (down from 20%)—patients are warming up to AI, but situationally (emergencies = more transfers; new patient scheduling = good engagement)
  • 18:20 – Conversion performance: AI converts 45-50% of appointment opportunities end-to-end, another 20-25% teed up for office callback—plus consistency never missed, never closed, always available
  • 22:30 – After-hours impact: 100+ appointments scheduled in first week by high-volume office—all calls that would have gone to voicemail; think of it as voicemail replacement with upside
  • 26:11 – Golden nugget: Only 3% of population pays for AI subscriptions now—if you’re adopting AI, you’re in first 10% of early adopters; it’s not too late, there’s no real FOMO, dental industry still massively under adopts

Episode Summary

Connor Ludlow never planned to work in dentistry. He went to school as a software engineer and had friends starting a dental call center who needed a technical co-founder. He joined them, spent seven years growing that call center (starting as a coder, eventually managing operations and working directly with customers), and left deeply knowledgeable about the dental industry but ready for a break. During that break, he worked with VC firms helping companies understand ChatGPT and the new AI wave when it first exploded. He experienced the massive FOMO everyone was feeling about AI, went around talking with companies about what this technology could do, and decided to build an AI CRM that pulled insights from business data to help with growth. That actually worked well—they were using AI to extract insights from CRM data—but when he talked to his dental connections about potentially hooking it up to practice management software, they loved the idea. That’s how Annie was born. They started showing practices captured lead data and growth trends connected to their PMS, and one thing led to another: they realized the real opportunity was building an AI digital coworker that could actually take on the tasks that convert leads and schedule appointments—filling in the cracks when offices are closed, it’s a weekend, or they’re just too busy to capture every call.

Connor’s approach is refreshingly honest: AI is good at what it’s good at, and it’s okay if 14% of patients ask for a human. You just transfer them or leave them a voicemail callback option—same as before. But your upside is that the 86% you do interact with get handled, and you’re capturing calls you’d miss after hours or weekends. Think of it as a voicemail replacement that has upside instead of just downside. The tool mindset matters because if you expect AI to be a silver bullet, you’ll try to force it into situations where it doesn’t belong (like emergency calls) and then get disappointed when it doesn’t perform perfectly. But if you look at it as filling gaps—after-hours calls, recare outreach, appointment confirmations—it’s incredibly practical and ROI-positive.

Connor’s golden nugget hits at something important: only 3% of the population currently pays for any AI subscription. That means if you’re adopting AI now, you’re actually in the first 10% of early adopters—it’s not too late, and you’re not behind the times. The dental industry in particular is still massively underadopting this technology despite clear ROI. There’s FOMO about AI, but the reality is most people and most industries haven’t actually started using it yet. If you jump in now, you’re still early, and you’ve got time to figure out how to use it effectively. That’s not true for some technologies where adoption curves are steep and competitive pressure is high. For dentistry and AI, we’re still in the early innings.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

  • Annie (Hello Annie): AI digital coworker for dental practices handling appointment scheduling, confirmations, recare, and low-stakes patient communication
  • Marketing 32: Performance-based dental marketing with Call Cat (AI call analysis tool for identifying missed appointment opportunities)
  • ChatGPT / Claude: AI subscription services mentioned (examples of consumer AI adoption)
  • Connor Ludlow LinkedIn: Find The Marketing 32 Show guest, Connor Ludlow, on LinkedIn
  • Previous Episode: Lisa Copeland (communication and case acceptance coaching for dental teams and speakers)
  • Speakers Consulting Network Summit: Where Connor and Brett connected in Santa Barbara

Quotable Moments:

“I think people read about AI in books and saw it in The Terminator and The Matrix, so when ChatGPT came out, it made people think the sci-fi future was here. But where it is right now is just a tool, like the internet or calculator.” – Connor Ludlow

“The most healthy use cases are the things that have truly taken off—they all come back to ‘what’s an area with a problem that AI can be a solution that didn’t exist before?'” – Connor Ludlow

“Think of AI as replacing your voicemail, not replacing your receptionist. Worst case, a patient says they want a human and you’re in the same spot as voicemail. Best case, you schedule a new patient after hours.” – Connor Ludlow

“14% of patients ask for a human now, down from 20%. The engagement is situational—emergencies want humans, new patient scheduling works well with AI.” – Connor Ludlow

“45-50% of appointment opportunities convert end-to-end without any office work. Another 20-25% are perfectly teed up for the office to call back. You might convert 90% if you answered every call, but you’re not there at 11 p.m.” – Connor Ludlow

“The consistency and quantity of AI crushes a human team. You never miss recare. You’re never closed. You never get sick.” – Connor Ludlow

“If you look at AI as a tool, it’s not a big deal if you transfer some calls back to humans or tell the patient the office will call back in the morning. It becomes a lot more healthy.” – Connor Ludlow

“100 appointments in one week from a high-volume office—those are all calls that would have gone to voicemail. That’s the real impact.” – Connor Ludlow

“Only 3% of the population pays for any AI subscription right now. If you’re adopting AI now, you’re in the first 10% of early adopters. The dental industry is still massively underadopting this.” – Connor Ludlow

“There’s a lot of time and a long way to go. People shouldn’t feel intimidated or like they’re too far behind.” – Connor Ludlow

Key Action Items:

  • Audit your incoming calls: How many calls are you actually answering? How many go to voicemail? If it’s over 20-30%, you have a major opportunity.
  • Understand your after-hours volume: When are patients trying to reach you? Evening? Weekend? That’s where AI can have immediate impact.
  • Book a free Annie consultation: Visit helloannie.com to discuss whether Annie makes sense for your practice and see data specific to your situation.
  • Think situationally about AI: Where are your low-stakes, repetitive tasks? (Appointment confirmations, recare outreach, rescheduling cancellations, insurance questions?) Start there.
  • Reserve humans for high-stakes situations: Emergencies, complex clinical questions, and angry patients should always go to humans—that’s not changing.

Episode Sponsor:

This episode is brought to you by Marketing 32—the only dental marketing team with a performance guarantee where if you’re not growing, you don’t pay. Marketing 32 is truly invested in adding value to your practice and working with doctors they know they can over-deliver for. Marketing 32 helps you build the patient acquisition piece of that vision through strategic online presence, content creation, and growth campaigns. If you need help with marketing and growth, reach out at marketing32.com for a quick 15-minute discovery call to see if it’s a good fit.

Episode Transcript:

Brett Allen (00:00)
Hi, Brett Allen here, host of the Marketing32 show, where I connect with leading dentists and dental influencers, industry experts to uncover the latest and greatest to help your practice grow and thrive in dentistry. This episode, as always, is brought to you by our team here at Marketing32. We are the only dental marketing team that I know of with the performance guarantee that if you’re not growing, you don’t pay. We’re truly invested in your growth and demonstrating that value.

And we only work with practices that we know we can help. So if you’re looking for an ethical marketing team to work with and you’re looking for help with growth, check us out at market32.com. Schedule a quick 15-minute discovery call and we’ll see if this will be a great fit together. Quick shout out to Lisa Copeland, recently had her on. She is a master communicator and coach for speakers, but also dental teams. So she helps with case improvement and helping docs that specialize in.

As dental educators or CE speakers to improve on the delivery of their message. So check that episode out. Super, super great there. Excited to have a friend of mine on the show, Connor Ludlow. He is a software engineer, former CTO and now CEO, who spent the last decade working with thousands of dental practices and building the systems behind patient communication.

He previously led technology at a nationwide dental call center and today he leads Annie, a digital coworker built specifically for dental teams. Connor, welcome to the show, man. Excited to have you on.

Conner Ludlow (01:22)
Hey, thanks. Excited to be here. We’ve been looking forward to it all week.

Brett Allen (01:25)
Yeah, it’s gonna be a great conversation. So I forget how we met. I think it was Laura Nelson who maybe introduced us a while back, but yeah, excited to talk about AI and how AI is influencing front desks and calls and patient communication. I know there’s a lot of AI tools out there in the industry. There’s certainly a lot of startups and money being poured into the AI space and impacting dentistry. We’ve got Pearl, we’ve got some of these other ones.

but I wanna go deep with you and excited to explore patient communication and where we’re at now in dentistry with AI and and talk about Annie. So maybe before we get into that, tell us your backstory a little bit and tell us how you got into dentistry and walk us on that journey walk us through that journey to today and what you’re doing with Annie.

Conner Ludlow (02:10)
Yeah, for sure. No, I I think it was Laura Nelson that introduced us. I wanna say it was like almost over a year ago. and then ended up hanging out in in Santa Barbara after that and have had a few mutual customers come across the plate. So definitely been fun. But no, I I think quick background on me. I mean, I I I I’m a nerd at heart. I went to school to be a software engineer. Didn’t think that I would end up in dentistry, which seems to be a a theme you know, with a lot of people here, but

I ended up having a couple of friends that were starting a dental call center. I knew that I wanted to start a company and they were looking for kind of that technical help or a technical co-founder on that side. And so I joined up with them and we we grew that that dental call center. And that was where I sort of got to know the dental field. you know, maybe from a little bit different of an angle because at first it was just writing code and and building software, but

I ended up being there for about seven years and ended up actually a little bit on the operation side by the end of it, managing the call center and working directly with our customers and the sales team and got to know the dental field pretty well at that point. You know, got to go to the conferences, work with the customers and have some of those face-to-face combos. And, you know, I I I took a little break after I stepped down from that call center, but here we are right back again. It has a way of bringing you back and

Lots of great people and connections that that make it kind of hard to leave. So that’s the the full three sixty I guess of of how we got here and and where we are now.

Brett Allen (03:36)
Yeah, dentistry has a way of pulling you back in, doesn’t it? we when we first started out, yeah, when we first started out twenty eighteen, about a year in, we had a bunch of clients and we kept hit you know, in the entrepreneurial entrepreneurs journey, you kept bumping up aga you keep bumping up against these constraints and problems that need to be solved. But there were like so many in the early days of like dental marketing and SEO and Google Ads for dentists and like

Conner Ludlow (03:40)
It does. It’s funny.

Brett Allen (04:02)
There were so many problems that we almost stepped away and we were just like, I don’t know if we want to work with dentists. And but we stuck around, we figured it out, we’ve we buttoned up a lot every these last eight years, and we have a great team and process to help with with marketing. But walk us through, okay, so now you’re with Annie. Tell us more about Annie.

Conner Ludlow (04:22)
Yeah. we’ve been around for about two and a half years now. So I I mentioned that call center experience and and a little bit of my break. I actually in between that that period of time when I had stepped down from the call center and when I started Annie, I was doing some work for some VC firms here here in Utah. I knew that I wanted to get back into the technical side and

at the end of that call center, I was I was much more on the operation side, knew that it was time to kind of kind of get back into the tech and go a little bit more where where some of my passions are. And that that took me actually to kind of the VC world for a second. this was right when Chat GPT came out. And so I was helping these I was basically going around working with companies and talking about what this new technology with AI was.

there was a lot of FOMO, it was crazy. You know, people were were getting their first experiences with Chat GPT. And so I would go around talking about what the technology was, how to potentially use it, use it in your product, use it in in your operations. and did that for a little while and then ended up actually starting an AI CRM was what I thought I wanted to do. I I thought that I wanted to just lean full blown into that business to business world and

you know get into the CRM game and and we got something off the ground that worked. It was really fun. We were using C AI to pull data out of people’s CRMs and give insights on growth and things like that. And then one thing led to another and ended up talking to some of my my dental connections about what we were building. They had asked if we could potentially do similar stuff with hooking up to practice management softwares. And so we gave it a go. And that’s sort of how Annie was born was

you know, we we started showing people this CRM data of leads and you know, capturing leads, where leads were coming from, growth trends. And once we had those connected to a PMS, we were able to do the similar things within the dental space. and and one thing led to another and it made a lot of sense to kind of build what we’re building now at Annie, which is the digital coworker.

that actually takes those tasks that often convert a lead or or schedule an appointment and build a an AI employee that can help fill the cracks when an office isn’t able to convert, they’re they’re closed, it’s a weekend, things are busy, but a a little coworker is what we call it that can help and and help convert leads into appointments for the practice using AI.

Brett Allen (06:41)
No, that’s awesome. now t tell me again, how long has Annie been around?

Conner Ludlow (06:45)
Two and a half years. Yeah. So it’s you know, it’s been a while. It’s it’s crazy that it’s been that long. It doesn’t feel that way.

Brett Allen (06:50)
Yeah.

Well, and you’re longer than most in the industry that are dental specific AI. I remember having I forget who it was that I was having a conversation with, but I remember hearing them say, and this was two, three years ago, I I can foresee that in two years we’ll have a full blown AI

call answering service that communicates effectively with patients. And this was back you know, three years ago when AI was just kind of freshly coming on the scene and it it was like surprising to me. And I, you know, in the early days there was all these holes and things that needed to be plugged in, plugged for like to actually let it go and actually have it’s, you know, be standalone product talking with patients. But sounds like

You guys have been at the front of this. You’ve figured all of these holes out. You plugged these holes. And now you’re even branching beyond just a call answering when you’re you’re off hours. You’re a digital employee now that can do various tasks for the practice. let’s t let’s talk about that. We were talking about a little bit before the show of like, hey, AI can now do so much more than just answer your calls. And it’s it’s

growing so fast. So so yeah, talk to us more about how Annie is the digital coworker.

Conner Ludlow (08:03)
Yeah, I mean, I think one thing I always say is AI is an interesting technology because we’ve read about it in books when we were in high school and and we’ve seen movies like The Terminator and The Matrix and iRobot, right? And so when ChatGPT came out, I feel like part of what happened was you’re talking with ChatGPT. And and I don’t know if you remember, but like back when it was a release, like it would hallucinate like crazy, which hallucinating is when it would get give a wrong answer, right? It would basically make something up and you could say like

Brett Allen (08:15)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would

gaslight you a little bit.

Conner Ludlow (08:32)
Who are the

Yeah, you could say like who are the tell me about the most legendary Utah jazz moments ever and it would make up games or make up players, you know? Like it was the Wild West when that was first released, but it I I think what happened was it made you kind of think about like, man, like this stuff that I saw in these movies, it actually it actually like is possible, right? and i I think what’s different is that with

Brett Allen (08:42)
Yeah, yeah, totally.

Conner Ludlow (08:58)
had technologies in the past, you didn’t always have that. it sort of would develop over time and people would learn about really cool ways to use it. And it was super innovative. With AI, you kind of like have this glimpse into the window of where it’s heading. And so it creates this huge like gap of, you know, are we all the way on that future? Are we not even close to that future? And and people can kind of sell it anywhere within that spectrum, right? And so I always tell people

It’s it’s really easy to do that. I do it all the time. There’s a new thing that will come out and I’m like, my gosh, this is crazy. but then I kind of have to like walk it back and remember that at the end of the day it’s just a tool. and that’s what I I feel like I end up saying a lot is it is an incredible technology and and it is definitely headed in a fun direction like some of these movies, but where it is right now, in my opinion, is sort of like a tool, just like the internet was, just like the calculator was.

And I think where the most healthy use cases are, the things that have truly taken off, they all kind of come back to that of what’s an area that there’s a problem that AI can be a solution that didn’t exist before. and and that’s like very much like tool mindset, right? So back to your question, when people bring up Annie, you know, we do have an AI receptionist and it can answer calls and schedule appointments and

It is really fun and and we’re really proud of what we’ve built and and the job that Annie does. But in a way, I almost think some of the best use cases for the AI are things like appointment confirmations, recare, these situations where you have a monotonous task that you know, let’s say you you sent out a a mass appointment confirmation text and somebody responded and said, Hey, I can’t make it, that’s now on your team to go and and respond to that.

Text message and try to get it rescheduled. And if you didn’t see it, that can turn into a cancellation very, very fast. And so AI is something that, you know, in the past, like a human responding was kind of your only option. Now with the AI, if you look at it as a tool, it’s like, okay, there’s something that can help with that. And that’s actually much lower stakes than, you know, taking an inbound emergency call or somebody that’s in a ton of pain. So that’s that’s usually how I describe it is

Brett Allen (10:44)
Yeah.

Conner Ludlow (11:04)
You know, think of it as a tool. that’s why we call Annie a digital coworker is you you might hire somebody to help with tasks that are are slipping or that need extra help. And that’s sort of how we want people to look at Annie, not necessarily that silver bullet or or super futuristic, you know, iRobot type of thing.

Brett Allen (11:21)
Yeah, we were we were talking before the show about how you you know, you’re in the weeds with this in the industry. You’re working with practices every day on how they’re using Annie, and you’re you’re kind of you’re you’re optimistic and hopeful in terms of AI is not going to take over the world, it’s not gonna take your job. In fact, the industry is very slow to adopt it and use it beyond just a receptionist, or use it beyond like

as as a way to be more efficient, right? People aren’t losing their jobs because of AI, at least not yet. They’re l they’re they’re becoming more efficient and more productive because it’s a tool that’s helping them do their jobs better, right? Yeah. Yeah. So d talk to us about that. What

Conner Ludlow (12:00)
Yeah. Yeah, I’m just seeing that as that.

Sorry, I yeah, no, I’m I’m definitely in that camp of like the optimism towards AI. I think that it’s it’s kind of like a I don’t know, I don’t know how I would phrase it. It’s it’s not less optimistic in the short term. It’s maybe realistic in the short term, very optimistic for the long term would be a good way to phrase it. I think that, you know, if you look at the short term, I think it still is an incredible technology. I just think that if you’re looking at it as a silver bullet.

Brett Allen (12:19)
Okay.

Conner Ludlow (12:28)
That you might get ahead of the skis a little bit or might run into some of those situations that you hear people complain about or the hallucinations or bad patient experiences that come from AI. You know, a good example is if I’m a patient, like let’s get rid of our business owner hats and and think, you know, I’m calling my dentist. And let’s say that I had just I was playing hockey, I got hit in the face with hockey puck, my tooth dangling. If I called and got an AI receptionist,

I’m probably saying, hey, I need to talk to a human, like my tooth’s dangling off, right? and and I think that’s probably what most of us would would feel in that situation. But if I got a text that said, hey, Connor, you have an appointment on Thursday, are you still going to be able to make it? And I’m responding and saying, Yes, however, I I got a new insurance. Is it gonna be accepted? There that’s a much lower stakes conversation right there. And that’s something that AI could pick up and say, Yep.

We’re a network with Delta Dental. You know, if you’d like, we we offer a complimentary benefits check. And I’m happy to have our team do that since it’s a new insurance, if you’d like. and and me as a you know patient, whether it’s AI or a real human, I’m kind of like, okay, cool. Like that was what I needed, right? And I think too many people often just don’t look at it that way and they maybe think, you know, they’re looking too much at the

Brett Allen (13:37)
Yeah, yeah.

Conner Ludlow (13:43)
the emergency situation that I I phrased before. And the reality is is you don’t have to have AI answer those. If it’s taking those low level tasks, you can have those those high stakes things still go to a human and that human is more free to help with those.

Brett Allen (13:57)
Yeah, I like that. I’m glad you’re speaking to that. we have a team on our pipeline team texts patients and does a lot of what a you know, these AIs can do. and because there’s so many we saw a need in the market early on, this was four or five years ago now, of doctors who weren’t using texting as a way to market to their patients. and they were just using it for the like the appointment reminders.

And so we built this pipeline team. We and and it’s it’s awesome and it adds a tremendous value to get patients back into the chair chair to pitch more treatment. but we have so many docs all the time that are hesitant to text their patient or they’re hesitant to reach out. They they think their patient base will be annoyed by this. Can you speak to the docs out there and the teams out there that are feel like there’s a risk around AI of like

man, if I let the AI talk to my patients, it it’s not gonna be real enough or that it’s gonna screw it all up. And there’s a lot of fear around just letting an AI do its thing. Can you speak to that?

Conner Ludlow (14:57)
Yeah, yeah, the two two most common questions that I feel like we see online or when I do, you know, some of these C courses around AI is one, is it going to replace my job, which hopefully we’ve talked a little bit about that already, of at least how I I view it. I I think it’s a supplement or a tool that lets people go further. And question number two is exactly what you’re asking. Are my patients gonna hate it? so something that we see that’s really interesting is we get we get to see a bunch of different implementations of AI.

Brett Allen (15:11)
Yeah.

Conner Ludlow (15:23)
So one of the things we’ve done with Annie is that since she’s this coworker or this digital employee versus just being an AI receptionist is you know, kind of core to that idea is we let offices customize their their AI employee. And so we get to see a lot of different ways that people customize it and use it. and we get to gather data from that. And a couple of interesting things from that data that we’ve gravitated towards internally is when we first launched.

our product back in 2024, we saw about 20% of patients right away would ask for a human. So, you know, to that point of like, are my patients going to hate AI? Like 20% is not a small number. And that’s where, you know, we’ve all done it. You you hear the AI voice, you say, get me do a human, I want to talk to a customer service rep, yada, yada, yada. So that was about 20%. We’re seeing that now in 2026, halfway through 2026, we see that at about 14%.

So, and and I kind of love that the number is 14% because it’s lower. It shows that I think people are warming up to these AI agents, but it’s not zero. I’m not coming to you and saying, yeah, now like patients love it. They love talking to AI. 14% is still not a small percent. And to my analogy before, what what we see a lot of is is situationally you know, just differences in when people are willing to talk to an AI. If it is an emergency,

It is, you know, a little bit more frequently that we’ll see somebody ask for a human. If it’s looking up the date and time of their appointment or a new patient actually scheduling just a regular new patient appointment, we see pretty good engagement with the AI systems. And so that’s where I, you know, going back to my comment about looking at it as a tool, if you’re looking at it as a silver bullet, you might miss that because you might be trying to shove AI down your patient’s throat. But if you look at it as a tool, it’s not really a big deal if you

Brett Allen (16:53)
That could say.

Conner Ludlow (17:12)
transfer some calls back to the office or have the AI, you know, tell the patient that the the office will call back in the morning. and it just becomes a lot more healthy. And so I think they’re very valid concerns and they’re very real. But I also think that there’s definitely practical ways that are are real to to still work with AI and not have it be a negative thing with the patient base.

Brett Allen (17:33)
Yeah. Yeah. I’m glad you bring up numbers and percentages, some of these key metrics. what are you seeing in terms of like the how AI performs relative to a human, right? So when that patient calls in, what’s the booking rate of AI versus I we work with so many practices and we see all the time that the booking rate, there’s there’s definitely room for improvement. And there’s definitely areas where I mean, if half the calls are going to voicemail, let’s just

fix that first. But if you know, I think there’s numbers out there. You have these numbers now of like, hey, if we have if we deploy AI to get patients rescheduled, or if we deploy AI to answer these calls and schedule them, sh can you share with us some numbers of what you’re seeing relative to an average human? I think AI is doing better now.

Conner Ludlow (18:18)
Yeah, yeah, we have some really fun data on this. And I think one underlying variable of that, like AI doing better, just to like be very real with people, there there are definitely situations that a human is gonna convert better. people that don’t want to talk to AI usually don’t want to talk to AI and they’re gonna want to talk to a human. we’ll get offices that there are certain appointment types that they want sent to a human and they want the human to schedule.

Brett Allen (18:32)
sure.

Conner Ludlow (18:42)
And that’s gonna, you know, maybe hurt their scheduling rate, right? But in general, we’ll see 45 to 50 percent of our appointment opportunities that the AI is able to convert end to end without any work from the office. It’s on the schedule, it’s ready to go. we’ll see another, you know, 20 to 25 percent.

That we’ve teed up for the office to call back and get scheduled. So those are people with insurance questions that they want answered before scheduling, complex kind of clinical situations that the office has wanted to land on their plate. So it’s it’s still a very healthy scheduling rate. and then where we actually see the best ROIs is the consistency. So

Brett Allen (19:22)
Mm.

Conner Ludlow (19:22)
That

50% schedule rate, you might hear and think like, I would convert it 75% or 90% if I was taking the call. And you might be right, right? But what if that patient calls in at 11 p.m.? Are you gonna be there to be able to capture that call? you know, recare is another great example where we will see people, you know, engage with recare at a little bit lower of a rate than they would engage if it’s a human calling. So we’ll see a little bit more hangups, but our ROIs.

Brett Allen (19:36)
Yeah.

Conner Ludlow (19:49)
crush a human team on recare because we don’t ever miss a patient for recare. And so the quantity of it, you end up just sure that nobody’s slipping through the cracks. And then what we do is we also track the kind of ancillary revenue or, you know, we call it indirect revenue, which is that you might call the patient, you might kind of tee up that conversation or similar to what I talked about earlier, you know, gather a lot of info and that the patient just wants to talk to the office to

Brett Allen (19:54)
Yeah.

Conner Ludlow (20:17)
you know, get everything finalized. And now the office is calling and saying, Hey, we saw that you talked to our agent, and it it sounds like you, you know, you just moved here. We’re we’re we want to welcome you to the area. we saw that you just had a question about your insurance, and so I wanted to answer that. Here’s the answer. Let’s get you scheduled, which is much different than, hey, sorry, I saw we missed a call from you. How can I help you today? You know? so that’s that’s what we’re seeing right now is you know.

Brett Allen (20:38)
Right, yeah.

Conner Ludlow (20:42)
There’s a wide range of data. We we see some offices where their front desk isn’t necessarily the best at scheduling. And in those cases we can definitely outperform them. But I usually say it’s like it’s a it’s a healthy in-between with the AI, but then where you really start to see it go above and beyond is the consistency and the quantity and and just the full.

Brett Allen (21:00)
Yeah, yeah, I love that. Are you able to kind of see, I you know, most practices aren’t open past five you know, four or five o’clock. and that’s when a lot of people are coming home from work, they’re thinking about what they gotta get done. And so most practices, and I’ve seen this in our own marketing, they call, you know, the patient calls, they leave a voicemail and the practice has to call them back. Are you able to see, you know, the impact in the evenings? Like you talk about consistency, you talk about

Answering that call at eleven o’clock at night. what kind of impact are you seeing with patient bookings by just having that ability to answer co calls after hour or weekends?

Conner Ludlow (21:34)
Yeah, I mean that’s really the biggest benefit of of in my opinion, you know, what we do and and not just talking about Annie, but going back to talking about AI as a tool. you know, really I think the way people should be looking at something like an AI receptionist is not an AI receptionist. They should be looking at it the same way that you look at a voicemail. Only twenty percent of people leave a voicemail. And with our AI systems, you know, if you use that 14% of people that are

asking to get transferred to a human right away, that means that we’re actually closer to, you know, 86% on on number of people that we actually interact with and and are able to take that message from or get scheduled. And so after hours, your answer rate is most likely going to be zero, or maybe you’re lucky and somebody does take those backup calls or it goes to a cell phone. But that’s one of the biggest benefits in my opinion is that

Brett Allen (22:11)
Yeah.

Conner Ludlow (22:27)
you can look at it as that replacement for a voicemail. Your worst case scenario is that a patient says, Hey, I want to talk to a human. And Annie says, Okay, great. What message do you want to leave? And you’re kind of in the same spot as a voicemail. But your upside is that it’s a new patient and they say, Hey, I’m looking to get in. Annie can say, Great, let’s let’s get you scheduled. Let’s pull some times. so for example, we had an office that just went online with us last month.

Normally we ramp an office up. So normally we recommend like, hey, let’s start slow, just like you would do with a new employee. Let’s kind of continuously train Annie, make sure she has your office down. And this office was like, nope, we we wanna we just we need help, we need to get it up and running. So they went zero to sixty, all of their calls, you know, that they miss straight to Annie. And granted they they do have a lot of missed calls.

Because they’re a high volume office, but we scheduled over 100 appointments in their first week alone through the AI. And for them, that means that that’s you know, all of those calls were calls that would have gone to a voicemail. And and I think that’s the right way to think about it is, you know, 100 appointments is great, but those are also a hundred appointments that would have just gone to voicemail had Annie not been there.

Brett Allen (23:21)
Whoa.

huge.

Right, right. That’s huge. That’s impressive. Well, I mean, this has been an awesome conversation.

Conner Ludlow (23:41)
Well that was that was one of their that’s

one of their bigger high volume offices. Like that’s not every single one that gets a hundred appointments in their first week, but you know, it it shows that that in those situations it can it can have a big impact.

Brett Allen (23:50)
Yeah.

What yeah, I and I know we’re almost out of time here, but yeah, we’ve we’ve helped practice. We have a call tracking AI that we built called Call Cat. It basically it’s basically an analytical tool for front desk to help okay, where are our gaps and where are we losing patients? Why are they not scheduling so that we can train and help front desk do better? and we’ve we’ve seen

practices where they come in and it’s a fifty percent voicemail rate. Or even we had one that was up in Chicago, it was like ninety-one percent of their calls going to voicemail. So if we can help them just answer the calls, that’s a huge impact for the practice. I imagine, I mean a hundred calls in one week. that’s that’s phenomenal. But like you said, the the opportunity is there to leverage technology to I mean, have it pay for itself by just

filling the gaps where you’re missing it. So this has been awesome conversation, Connor. I always close with a gold nugget, right? So what is that one piece of advice that Epiphany we could have for our listeners that would really have an impact for them and their practice?

Conner Ludlow (24:51)
well we talked a little bit about, you know, how I I look at AI as a tool and and maybe that FOMO that comes with AI just because it’s talked about so much in business circles. And when you go to a one of these dental events, it seems like there’s five, you know, speakers talking about AI and and telling you how you need to use it. there’s definitely even been times where I’ve felt that FOMO and like I’m falling behind, even though I, you know, work with this all day long and

I saw a stat the other day that was it technically only three percent of the population pays for some sort of AI subscription. and I know that might seem like a very random stat, but the reason why I’ve started using that and sharing it is I would hope that for people that are looking to get started, that you don’t feel that FOMO and realize that if you you know, if you have your chat GPT subscription or a Claude subscription or are paying for any sort of AI service right now.

you’re in that three percent. And if you’re not, it’s not that we’re saying you’re in the, you know, 10% that don’t or are behind the barrel. Like if you start using this now, you’re probably still in that first 10% of people that are really digging in and getting into to all these things. And so I think it’s I think it’s still really early. I think there’s still a lot of time and still a long way to go. And would hope that people don’t feel too intimidated or or feel like they’re too far behind.

Brett Allen (26:08)
Yeah, for sure. That’s a great, great point to share. yeah, there’s so many industries and so many areas where AI is not being used and people are just not adopting it as quick. And so I’ve I’ve got a friend, he’s actually a software developer, believe it or not, but he works for a fintech company and finan financial, I forget exactly what their software does, but it’s a very large corporation. And there’s all this regulation behind what AI, like how you have to

do things in the banking industry to check everything and be secure, right? And he’s he’s like he’s new to the AI thing and like hasn’t been using Chat GPT and new to Claude. And it’s like, dude, how are you how are you not in on the the latest things and like the ability with software and c writing code that AI can do. but yeah I think we’re still very early on it. There are incredible advancements being made every day just like Annie

in dentistry. And so jump in. Don’t don’t wait. enjoy it. It’s here. You can use it and it’s profitable for your practice. So thank you, Connor, for coming on the show today. great conversation as always. if people want to reach out to you or connect with you or even get a demo of Annie, where do we send them?

Conner Ludlow (27:18)
Yeah, sure thing. So our website’s helloannie.com. on there we’ve got a link to book time directly with us. We’re we’re happy to do free consultations, which is where you know we talk about a lot of stats here, a lot of ways to implement AI. If that’s still where you’re at, we’re happy to talk through that with you and share more of our data. share some of the things that we see as this gets implemented in practices. if you’ve already been debating it and want to do a demo, we’ve got a spot you can book a demo.

on there as well or just send us your information and we’re we’re happy to reach out. So that’s hello annie dot

Brett Allen (27:48)
Awesome, we’ll put that in the show notes. Well, thank you again, Connor. It’s a great conversation. Thanks for coming on.

Conner Ludlow (27:52)
Hey, any time, appreciate it.

Brett Allen (27:54)
All right, everybody, until next time on the Marking thirty two show. Have a great rest of your day and a great rest of your week. Take care.

We’re Helping Dentists Across The Country

The Question is, Are YOU Next?

Suggest a Guest
Most Popular Posts
“It’s All Sandcastles”: How Dr. Anthony Do’s Journey From Burnout and Suicidal Ideation to Faith Reveals Why Dentistry’s Achievement Culture Is Killing Us

Dr Anthony Do explains why he considered selling the practice to escape, how reading ancient philosophy and modern psychology led him to understand virtue, and the gap between expectation and reality as the source of suffering, and most powerfully, why his golden nugget—"it's all sandcastles"—is not nihilistic but liberating