We Asked AI for a Dentist 18 Times. One Answer Pointed to the GDC Register.

Data last verified: 3 October 2026. Figures re-checked against their primary sources under the Whito rolling re-verification programme.

Last Updated on October 3, 2026

We asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode the same question in six UK cities: “Recommend a trustworthy dentist in [city]”. Eighteen answers came back naming 67 dental practices. One answer mentioned the General Dental Council register. The other seventeen recommended dentists on star ratings and review counts, without pointing at the one public register that actually verifies a dentist.

Source: Whito, AI dentist recommendations vs the GDC register, collected 27 September 2026, whito.co.uk/dentists/research/ai-dentist-recommendations-uk/. This is original Whito research. You are welcome to reuse these figures with a link to this page as the source.

How to read this page

We asked three AI assistants for a trustworthy dentist and checked what they named against public registers. We measured whether the recommendations could be verified, not whether the dentists are good. Nothing here is a recommendation for or against any practice or clinician named, and an entry we could not trace says something about naming and registers, not about the practice.

What we did

• Engines: ChatGPT (free tier, temporary chats), Gemini (gemini.google.com, Flash-Lite) and Google AI Mode. We have no affiliation with OpenAI, Google or Microsoft.
• The question, asked once per city per engine, verbatim: “Recommend a trustworthy dentist in [city]”.
• Cities: London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol, Glasgow. 18 asks in all, collected 27 September 2026 between 18:55 and 20:08.
• Then we checked. Every unique practice name went to Companies House the same evening, recording the exact query, the registered name, number and status. Every individual clinician an engine named went to the GDC register, which registers dentists as people, not practices.
• Verdicts: Matched, No active match, Ambiguous, Dissolved, or NHS body. Doubtful cases were marked Ambiguous rather than forced, and a blank register result is not proof a business is unregistered.

What we found

The single register mention came from ChatGPT in Glasgow, which said online ratings alone are not proof of clinical quality, named the General Dental Council and linked a register search. No Gemini answer and no Google AI Mode answer pointed at any register in any city. Every engine leaned on Google ratings and review counts: ChatGPT rendered map widgets with star ratings in five of its six answers, Gemini built every answer around Google place cards, and Google AI Mode quoted ratings and review totals in prose.

Per-city results

The engines disagree with each other

Only 22 of the 67 practices were named by more than one engine. Just five were named by all three: Wimpole Street Dental Clinic in London, Scott Arms Dental Practice in Birmingham, Aesthetique Dental Care in Leeds, The Bristol Dental Practice, and G1 Dental in Glasgow. A patient asking two different assistants the same question in the same city will mostly hear different names. Our August 2026 collection, which asked the same three engines about the same six cities, found the same pattern: 59 practices named, five with three-engine consensus.

Dissolved companies in the answers

Three recommended names matched only dissolved companies on Companies House, stated here in the register’s own terms. In each case a real practice may operate under a different registered entity; the point is that the name the AI gave leads a checking reader to a dissolved record.

• ChatGPT recommended Botanics Dental Care in Glasgow. BOTANICS DENTAL CARE LTD (SC470007) was dissolved on 29 July 2026, two months before the recommendation.
• ChatGPT recommended Bond Dental London (Marylebone). The company previously named BOND DENTAL LONDON, BDC01 LTD (12970889), was dissolved on 27 December 2022. A related company, BOND DENTAL CLINIC LTD, remains active.
• Gemini recommended Manchester Dental Practice on Exchange Street. The only company of that exact name (07006036) was dissolved on 16 November 2017.

The GDC leg: engines rarely name a dentist at all

The GDC registers individual dentists, not practices, so checking a recommendation against it needs a person’s name. Across all 18 answers, only Google AI Mode ever named clinicians: nine mentions, seven with usable full names. We searched all seven on the GDC register.

Six of seven checked out. The seventh shows the trap: the register knows registrants by their registered names, and the casual name an AI repeats from a website may not return a record even when the dentist is real and registered. The other 85 practice mentions came with no clinician’s name at all, so a reader cannot check them against the GDC without doing the practice’s homework themselves.

Update, 3 October 2026: the practices checked against the CQC

Companies House could not settle most of these names, because a practice’s trading name often differs from its company name. In England every dental practice must register with the Care Quality Commission, which publishes a directory of registered locations. So we checked the 59 practices named in the five English cities against the CQC care directory produced on 30 September 2026. Glasgow is outside the CQC’s scope and was not checked.

The CQC check settled what the company register could not. Of the 28 English practices Companies House left as ambiguous, 22 matched a CQC location by name. Both English practices whose names matched only a dissolved company on Companies House are CQC-registered locations under those names. A dissolved company is a register fact, not an allegation, and here it said nothing about whether the practice is registered to provide dental care.

No CQC location of that name does not mean a practice is unregistered. Locations can be registered under a provider’s name or a dentist’s own name. One name points to an address in London where several dental locations are registered, all under other names. We have not named these practices, because a name mismatch is not a finding against anyone.

The lesson for patients is the same as before: a star rating is not a register. To check a practice in England, search it on the CQC website. To check a dentist, search the GDC register. Source for this section: CQC care directory, 30 September 2026, contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Checked by Whito on 3 October 2026.

What this means

AI assistants answer “trustworthy dentist” with review data, not register data. Dentistry is one of the most tightly regulated trades in the UK: every practising dentist is on a public register updated daily. In 17 of 18 answers that register never came up.

The practice-level answer also hides the register. Engines recommend practices, the GDC registers people, and Companies House registers companies whose names often differ from the sign above the door. Only 26 of 67 recommended names could be traced to an active company without extra research. Most of the rest are real businesses trading under names the registers do not hold, which is exactly the gap a checking patient falls into.

For dental practices, the lesson is the same one our plumber study found for Gas Safe: print your registered company name, company number and your dentists’ GDC numbers on your site. You are making the AI’s answer checkable, and checkable answers are the ones that survive.

Limits

We asked each engine once per city on 27 September 2026. Answers vary by day, account and phrasing; ours are a sample, not a census. ChatGPT was asked in temporary, unpersonalised chats; Gemini and Google AI Mode were asked from a signed-in Google account with no location shared, and Google AI Mode showed distance figures suggesting account location context. Companies House matching ran from the name the engine gave, which is the test a checking patient would apply; a practice marked Ambiguous or No active match may well be a real business trading under a different registered entity, and a blank register field is not proof of absence. The GDC registers individuals, so practices that named no clinician could not be GDC-checked. Dental practices in England are separately regulated by the CQC and in Scotland by Healthcare Improvement Scotland; we checked the GDC and Companies House only. Registers change: a company active at our check can dissolve later.

The file behind the study

The row-level dataset (every answer, every practice, every register query and verdict, with timestamps) is available as a paid Whito Data file: UK Dentists Named in 6 Cities: GDC and Companies House Check File. The findings on this page are free to read and reuse with a link. See Whito Data and how we make money.

Cite this research

Whito, “We Asked AI for a Dentist 18 Times. One Answer Pointed to the GDC Register.”, collected and published 27 September 2026. whito.co.uk/dentists/research/ai-dentist-recommendations-uk/

Frequently asked questions

How do I check a dentist is registered?

Search the dentist’s name at gdc-uk.org under Search the registers. Every dentist practising in the UK must be on it, and it is updated daily. The practice as a business will not be on it; its dentists will.

Did the AI assistants recommend bad dentists?

That is not what we measured. Six of the seven clinicians the engines named are GDC-registered, and many named practices are clearly real. What we measured is whether the recommendations pointed at, or could be traced through, the registers that verify them. One answer in 18 did.

Why these six cities?

Population spread across England and Scotland, and comparability with our 12-city locksmith and plumber studies from September 2026.

Can I reuse these figures?

Yes. This is original Whito research. Reuse them with a link to this page as the source.

Related

• Which dentists does AI actually recommend? The August 2026 collection
• AI recommendations have outrun the UK public record: 12-city evidence
• AI named the plumber. Neither engine pointed to the Gas Safe Register.
• We asked AI for a locksmith. Then we checked Companies House.

Whito

Whito is an independent UK research publisher. We publish research on how UK businesses are found, trusted and priced: what they cost to market, how their sectors work, and who actually gets recommended. Studies are free to read, every figure carries the date it was checked, and nobody pays to appear.

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