Why the Academy Published This Guide

AI agents are already operating in dental practices — scheduling patients, transcribing visits, drafting communications. The technology arrived before the guardrails. Every week brings new capabilities, new vendors, and new ways for patient information to move through systems that were never designed with autonomous software in mind.

The Academy's position is straightforward: the technology is not the problem. The absence of shared standards for its responsible use is.

This guide is our contribution to building those standards. It draws on the Academy's peer-reviewed work on agentic AI in dentistry ^[5] and will be updated as the technology, the regulations, and the threat landscape evolve.

References

1. Anthropic, "Covered Models under a Business Associate Agreement (BAA)," Claude Help Center, updated July 1, 2026. https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15455031-covered-models-under-a-business-associate-agreement-baa
2. National Institute of Standards and Technology, "Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework: Generative Artificial Intelligence Profile," NIST AI 600-1, July 26, 2024. https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.AI.600-1
3. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "HIPAA Security Rule to Strengthen the Cybersecurity of Electronic Protected Health Information," Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 90 FR 898 (January 6, 2025).
4. HIPAA Journal, "HIPAA Updates and HIPAA Changes in 2026," updated 2026. https://www.hipaajournal.com/hipaa-updates-hipaa-changes/
5. Farooqi O, DeNucci DJ, Moharrami M. Agentic Artificial Intelligence in Dentistry: A Practice-Focused Perspective for the Dental Team. European Journal of General Dentistry. 2026;15(03):303-305. doi:10.1055/s-0046-1822820

Published by the American Academy of Artificial Intelligence in Dentistry.

For questions about this guidance, contact info@aaai-d.org.

Last updated: October 2026.

This document is subject to the Important Disclaimer set forth at the beginning of this white paper, which is incorporated herein by reference.