Patients Still Call First: How Dental Practices Are Putting AI Agents to Work at the Front Desk
For all the talk about apps, portals, and online booking, the phone is still where most patient relationships start. In a large survey of 3,661 U.S. adults, weighted to national benchmarks and published in Health Affairs Scholar in 2025, 72.1% said they had used a phone call to schedule a medical appointment in the past year, and 56.4% said the phone was their primary scheduling method. Provider portals (19.7%) and in-office scheduling (19.1%) trailed far behind.
That is a problem for any office whose front desk is stretched thin. Here is what the research says about that pressure, how healthcare and dental teams use AI agents to relieve it, and where human judgment must stay in charge. Read More
Chatbots vs Web Forms: Why AI Chat Converts More Leads in 2026
For more than twenty years, the web form has been the standard way to collect leads online. The numbers, however, are hard to ignore: somewhere between 68% and 81% of visitors who begin filling in a web form abandon it before submitting. AI chatbots offer a high-converting alternative. They talk with visitors in real time, qualify leads as the conversation unfolds, and collect contact details without asking anyone to complete a row of empty fields. This guide compares the two approaches, looks at the data, and explains when each one makes sense for your business. Read More
AI employee setup
A practical AI employee setup starts with one role, a defined list of approved tasks, and clear rules for when a person takes over. For example, a support agent can handle refund requests under $100 and escalate requests over $100; an accounts receivable agent can escalate an invoice after 3 reminders. Clear boundaries give the AI a specific job, not open-ended authority.
It makes sense to be cautious about handing work to a new system. The goal isn’t to automate every interaction or remove human judgment. It’s to take repeatable tasks off your team’s plate while keeping people in control of sensitive decisions and unusual cases.
This guide explains how to choose customer service and internal tasks, set permissions and escalation paths, and connect the tools an AI employee needs. You’ll also learn how to test its work and refine the setup based on real use, starting with a manageable role and expanding only when the process works. Read More
Nvidia (NVDA) wants to reduce the time it takes for its customers to start generating revenue from its AI systems.
At its GTC event in Berlin on Wednesday, the company unveiled its DSX POD, a reference design for an AI data center packed into a box about the size of a standard shipping container.
Nvidia reveals plans for 'an AI factory in a shipping container' to build data centers in weeks, not months
SEO and GEO: Helping Customers Find Your Business in the Age of AI
A potential customer needs exactly what your business offers. They reach for their phone, search for help, and begin comparing their options. Whether your business enters that conversation can determine who gets the next call, appointment, or sale.
Some customers search Google and browse websites. Others ask an AI assistant to explain their options or help them choose a provider. SEO and GEO help businesses become more visible across these different paths to a purchase.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It involves improving your website so search engines can discover and understand its content, and customers can find it when searching for relevant products or services. For a roofing company, that might mean appearing when someone searches “roof repair in Phoenix.” For a med spa, it could mean reaching people looking for a particular treatment nearby. Google describes SEO as helping search engines understand content while helping people decide whether to visit a website.
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization. It focuses on helping your content become eligible to inform, support, or be cited in AI-generated answers. A customer might ask, “What should I look for when hiring a roofing contractor?” An AI search tool may pull information from several sources and produce an answer with supporting links. GEO considers how your business’s expertise and information can participate in those responses.
For most businesses that depend on online discovery, it makes sense to address both. Customers can move between search results, AI answers, reviews, and business websites before making a decision. Your visibility strategy should support that journey.
The work also overlaps considerably. Google says established SEO practices remain relevant to its AI search features, with no separate special optimization required for AI Overviews or AI Mode. A strong SEO foundation therefore supports visibility in those experiences too. Businesses with limited budgets can begin with that shared foundation instead of treating SEO and GEO as entirely separate projects.
That foundation begins with a website that clearly explains what you do, who you serve, and how customers can take the next step. Search engines use automated programs to discover pages and add them to an index. Clear page titles, useful content, descriptive links, and a logical website structure help them understand those pages and their relevance to a search.
AI search adds another layer. When generating an answer, a system may retrieve relevant web pages, draw information from them, and provide links to supporting sources. Google explains that its AI features can run multiple related searches to explore different aspects of a question. This creates opportunities for content that answers specific customer concerns in useful detail.
Consider an HVAC company. A basic website might say, “We provide quality heating and cooling services.” A more useful website explains which systems the company repairs, where it operates, whether emergency appointments are available, what affects repair costs, and when replacement may make more sense.
Those details give potential customers something concrete to evaluate. They also provide clearer information for search engines and AI systems to interpret. Accurate business listings, accessible text, and information that stays current support this work.
For a business owner, the practical problem is often being overlooked. You may deliver excellent service, yet prospective customers never discover you. Better visibility creates more opportunities to reach people who are actively researching a need your business can meet.
Another problem is attracting inquiries that are a poor fit. Clearly explaining your service area, specialties, process, and limitations helps customers decide whether to contact you. Someone who understands your offer before calling can arrive with more relevant questions and clearer expectations.
Useful content can also address uncertainty before it delays a purchase. Explaining how a service works, showing real examples, and answering common concerns gives people a stronger basis for choosing your business. Over time, organic discovery may help diversify lead sources alongside referrals and paid advertising.
Results still require measurement and realistic expectations. Rankings and AI citations are not guaranteed, and visibility alone does not produce revenue. Track qualified calls, appointment requests, and sales alongside search traffic. Where available, AI citation reports can help show which pages contribute to generated answers; Bing offers this reporting through its AI Performance tools.
For business owners, the goal is straightforward: make your expertise easy to find, your services easy to understand, and your business easy to contact. SEO and GEO support that goal wherever a customer begins their search.
ChainUpThe landscape of global finance shifted permanently on March 18, 2026 when the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officially approved Nasdaq’s proposal to launch a tokenized securities platform. While the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) signaled similar plans earlier, Nasdaq’s regulatory head start makes it the first major U.S. exchange to move from concept to live pilot. Read More
BREAKING: $4 trillion Federal National Mortgage Association to accept bitcoin-backed mortgages for the first time — WSJ
For years, Bitcoiners were forced to either sell their holdings to buy a home or be invisible to lenders. Now the largest government-sponsored housing institution in the country is formally recognizing Bitcoin as collateral-worthy wealth.
History!
Bull Market Solutions Announces Partnership with Bottom Line Savings
Partnership closes the gap for thousands of eligible SMBs to access Employee Retention Credit
LOS ANGELES (May 25, 2022) – Bull Market Solutions. the source for small businesses in America to get more funds, today announces it has partnered with Bottom Line Savings, a no risk, contingency-based cost savings company, to help small businesses access Employee Retention Credit (ERC) refund.
The ERC is a stimulus program designed to help businesses that were able to retain their employees during the Covid-19 pandemic. Established by the CARES Act, the ERC is a payroll tax refund that small and mid-sized businesses can claim and do not need to pay back. It is based on qualified wages and healthcare paid to employees. Initially, under the CARES Act of 2020, businesses were not able to qualify for the ERC if they had already received a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan. With new legislation in 2021, employers are now eligible for both programs, though the ERC cannot apply to the same wages as the ones claimed for the PPP.
Bull Market Solutions is adding on to its existing funding solutions to push more government funding to eligible small businesses. Alongside Bottom Line Savings, Bull Market Solutions is leveraging its existing network of over 40,000 small businesses, coinciding with the Company’s overall mission of helping small businesses succeed in the United States through financial grants and tactical support.
“The ERC program is an extremely under-utilized and extremely valuable financial aid opportunity for small business owners to receive from the government,” explains Bull Market Solutions Ray Zamora. “After identifying this opportunity to help more small businesses, developing a partnership with Bottom Line Savings was a no-brainer. Since 2008, they’ve recovered over $2.2 billion dollars for more than 7,000 clients – including American Express, Uber, and Rolex.”
This partnership mirrors previous successful channel partnership deals from Bull Market Solutions. In the last two years, the company has generated a total of $8 million from similar channel partnerships.
Zamora continued, “We have been very fortunate to secure unique partnerships like this one with Bottom Line Savings. By using our own advertising budget and technology, it not only fits our company mission, but it’s also a huge opportunity for us to get higher ROI from our leads.”
To qualify as an employer, business owners must meet the following:
* Experience changes to your operations due to an Executive Order during 2020 or 2021; or
*Your gross receipts for 2020 fell below 50% for the same quarter in 2019 and fell below 80% for 2021.
Investors purchase record number of homes, 32% in some cities, what does this mean for values.
Real estate investors spent a record $63.6 billion to purchase homes in the third quarter, up 78% from a year earlier, with an intense housing shortage fueling their returns, according to a Redfin report published on Monday. “Investors are expecting rents to increase in the coming years,” said Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. What does this mean for real estate values in the short term and long term?
What was in the data regarding investment property purchases?
Investors are snapping up homes at an unprecedented pace across the country, including in metro Denver. Investors purchased a record 18.2% of the homes sold nationally in the third quarter, or 90,215 homes worth $63.6 billion, according to a study from the Seattle-based real estate brokerage Redfin. In dollar terms, investors bought a record $63.6 billion worth of homes in the third quarter, up from a revised $58.8 billion in the second quarter and $35.7 billion a year earlier.
In total, real estate investors represented 18.2% of the U.S. homes purchased in the third quarter, seven basis points higher than a year earlier, Redfin’s analysis found. But their share increased to 32% in Atlanta (GA), 31.7% in Phoenix (AZ), and 31.5% in Charlotte (NC) and almost 18% in Denver (CO).
Why should we focus on the percentage of investment purchases?
The huge increase in purchases by investors in Atlanta and throughout the country is astounding. The bet for the investors is that rents and values continue to climb. Unfortunately, real estate cannot go up forever. What happens when rents flat-line and values decline?
There was an important study done by the Urban Institute in 2013 that was the most extensive analysis of investment properties that I have seen. Here are the key findings:
“Investment properties are 15 percent more likely to default, controlling for loan and property characteristics. Again, the higher default rate, with all else held constant, is consistent with the literature. Investors have fewer personal ties to the properties and neighborhoods and are not subject to costs associated with eviction, making them more likely to default than owner-occupants (Belsky and Richardson 2010; Fisher and Lambie-Hanson 2012; Gerardi, Shapiro, and Willen 2008; Haughwout, Peach, and Tracy 2008). Focusing on Chelsea, Massachusetts, Fisher and Lambie-Hanson (2012) found that local investors had 1.8 times the foreclosure risk of owner-occupants. Haughwout, Peach, and Tracy (2008) found that investors were significantly more likely than owner-occupants to default when confronted with a downward movement in house prices or negative equity. ”
What does the amount of investment homes being purchased tell us about real estate values?
Based on the study above if there are more investment homes in an area and market values decline, these areas are 15% more susceptible to default than a traditional owner-occupied property. As the percentage of homes bought by investors increase, the downside risk also increases substantially.
Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather said, “Investors are expecting rents to increase in the coming years, even though home prices are high, they are waiting for rents to grow and there are no signs that prices will decline.”
Though there’s been much hand-wringing over the impact institutional investors play in the housing market, the typical investor is usually small and local. Institutional investors are estimated to own roughly 2% of U.S. single-family homes, the vast majority of which are rentals.
There will always be another cycle and it is not possible for prices to continue to increase at their blistering pace. Interest rates are currently increasing substantially while at the same time inflation is cutting into purchasing power of buyers. These two factors will eliminate double digit growth over the next several years and likely will lead to a slight decline in values.
Summary
Investors piling into investment real estate at record numbers is a warning sign. Most of these investors are small time investors that are much more prone to the market than an institutional investor. With prices as high as they are there is no way that rents can rise fast enough to justify the prices.
Furthermore, interest rates are moving up substantially which will further dampen the return on an investment property. Residential real estate is at an inflection and peaked sometime this past summer. The only way for real estate to go is flat at best or likely down. As the market goes down, historical studies show a substantially higher default rate for rental homes. Look for this trend to rear its head in as the market changes. If you are in the real estate market, now would be a good time to sell and to sit tight if you are buying.