Three things stood out to us after IDS 2025 (The biggest dental show, 2,000 exhibitors!). I’ve been at IDS since 2015, and the change is dramatic:
1. Software is now a standalone dental product.
- There are many software-only companies.
- In the past, IDS was dominated by three categories: materials, equipment, and furniture. Only a handful of software companies showed up—and they had bad locations in the basement next to the emergency exits.
- This year, many exhibitors are software-only—and they’re in the prime spots, with big and expensive booths that only the big hardware players could afford a few years ago.
2. Hardware companies are ramping up and also offer software.
- Most equipment manufacturers now bundle their devices with their own software solutions.
3. AI is everywhere.
- Back in 2017, only a few exhibitors besides our booth were promoting AI. Now you see AI claims on almost every booth.
- It can set the wrong expectations.
- AI can’t replace human intelligence—at least not in aligner space. There’s no magic “AI” that can create a perfect tooth-movement plan from a scan. Humans still drive quality control and final tooth position. AI speeds up the work, and automates some steps, and does it with high accuracy (even better than a human), but it does not replace a specialist.
One more note: aligner manufacturing has never been more accessible. Equipment and material costs have dropped almost tenfold in a few years. Fully automated manufacturing lines once required millions now take just a few hundred thousand.
