Technology as Core Infrastructure: 2026 Dental Industry Insights
For years, I’ve been telling practice owners the same thing: dentistry doesn’t have a demand problem, it has a systems problem. Dentistry remains one of the most resilient healthcare categories in the country. And yet, owner income is under pressure, overhead keeps climbing, and teams are stretched thinner every year. That contradiction isn’t accidental. It’s structural.
The newly released 2026 Dental Technology Landscape report from HealthStream Ventures puts real data behind what many high-performing owners and groups are already feeling on the ground and validates a shift that forward-thinking practices have already begun to make.
Below are the key takeaways every practice owner and group leader should understand right now:
- Dentistry’s core problem is efficiency not demand
- Practice management software is a strategic business decision, not an IT choice
- Legacy systems create compounding risk, not stability.
- AI Is changing revenue, diagnostics, and patient experience
- Technology maturity is a direct driver of practice valuation
The next decade of winners in dentistry won’t be determined by who produces the most dentistry, but by who builds the most efficient, scalable, and buyer-ready operating platform underneath it.
Read the full report here: The 2026 Dental Technology Landscape: Cloud, AI, and the Economics of Modern Practice Management