Dr. Mehdi Peikar
Hello, I'm doctor Mehdi Peikar and in this podcast, Dean and I will talk about celebrace. You learn about how AI will be in your clinic, in your device, in your digital braces.
Dean Steinman
Well, hello everybody out there in podcast land.
This is Dean Steinmann from Worth of Marketing and guess what we are back with another podcast for you. Yes, so I am very excited for today's guest. But Chris, let's take one step back and hope everybody is having a great day. Hopefully you're all smile today and making the difference in people's lives.
Obviously, everybody who's listening to this, it's the dental world and your job is to make people smile. So hopefully made somebody smile today. If you did, it's a good day. So with that said, I'm smiling because we have a new guest here that i'd love to introduce everybody too and to learn the story.
And it's very great story. As you know many. Guests on before who are with the dantist dentists that start technology companies, and we have another one here that's a good, great story and I always liked to hear their journey. So with that said, I am very psyched to have Dr. Mehdi Peikar here and he is the founder of Celebrates.
Maddy, welcome, how are you today?
Dr. Mehdi Peikar
Thank you? I'm great, And before we start, I wanted to thank you Dean for having me.
Dean Steinman
My pleasure. I'm so glad you could join. We were introduced from a mutual friend. That would be my pleasure to have you join and tell a little bit about your story.
So before we jump into it, Maddy, tell us tell us a little bit about you. You have interesting story and. Your background, So why don't you tell us a little bit about Dr. Mehdi Peikar.
Dr. Mehdi Peikar
Yeah. Sure. So I'm originally from Iran and I moved to the US in twenty eleven. Actually, before coming to the US, I was a dentist and also I did my residency there in Iran, and I was a faculty there for a year, and then I came to the US and I loved physics and always my dream was to study do a PhD in physics in the US, and then I was lucky enough to do that. In twenty eleven, I came to Illinois University of Illinois.
I started my PhD there in quantum mechanics and condensed matter, and then I moved to Johns Hopkins to complete my PhD in biomechanics. So I finished my PhD there at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and then during all during that time, I had the idea for basically digital orthodontics to be able to use technology for patients, and I kind of stumbled into entrepreneurship world. I wanted to bring this idea, these ideas that I have for digital orthodontics to the world, and I noticed that if I do a second round of residency, you know, it will be easier that I can try it on patients myself to be able to improve it. So I went to UCLA in twenty sixteen and I did the second round of residency there.
And during this time I was working on my previous company called Briu s Independent Movers BRAVO by Brius, which is a lingual system and it's very biomechanics heavy. And then. After this, you know Brius is going the companies growing. But I during all this time, I was also thinking about Celebrates, and I tell you a little bit about Celebrates, Celebrates is labial system 100% custom braces that are made of metal and we use an IDB to place those on the teeth.
And the customization is basically has different aspects. One is the base of the bracket because with tree 3d print in metal, they perfectly fit the tooth, and that's one aspect of the customization. The other aspect is the slot of the brackets. Those are also 100% custom because you know, like with traditional braces, you know, like we always use MBT or we use like prescription like Wrath.
But when I think, you know, when I used to think about it, I was like, how is that event possible? You know, when you do your aligner, you never say you use MBT prescription for torques and tips, or you don't use ROT prescription. You just use the treatment plan for this patient, this custom You make it the aligner custom for the patient. So I thought, why we don't do this for braces. And basically, when the doctor approves the treatment plan, we'd CELEB in our software, we reverse engineer and we designed the brackets with AI based on that virtual treatment plan that the doctor approved, and the prescription is going to be It's not gonna be MBT or ROT it's going to be exactly just for this patient, custom for this patient.
I'm doing. I'm in this industry for a while now, and I've always been amazed that that helps. Something like braces or aligners cannot be 100% custom for each person because everybody has their own unique plan that they need and they have unique message and you smile, that has to be moved a certain way. So let's take a step back.
How was this. Industry even moving forward if something is not custom? Were you're putting a Are you putting a square peg in a round hole and hoping it fits? You know, educated us on how it was and how how did you get results of something that was not custom or was it just not the results that you wanted.
Dr. Mehdi Peikar
Yeah, it's a great question, and maybe in orthodontics for more than one hundred years, we're so used to it that we don't appreciate the fact that we are just using the same bracket one size fits all. It's it's like you go to the shoe store and they only have like size nine point five and kind of works, but it's not comfortable.
The same for braces, And you know, if you step back, we think about like the history of orthodontics movies. You know, first we had like a standard edgewise, so the doctors had to like put. All the torques in the wire. And after that, which is very I mean I have tried it during my residency and this is so tedious.
After that was straight wires like MBT and ROT, which is a huge step. It's average basically, you do still it's one size fits all, but you're looking at the average. Those prescriptions are work for average. And it's like it takes you, it doesn't take you exactly to your destination.
You know. This is the analogy sometimes I use. It's like you take a taxi. It takes you like five blocks from your home or your destination.
Okay, at the end of it, you have to somehow get to your destination. And we try to brass with MBT. Basically we still have to do a little bit of wire bending, and sometimes that takes much longer than like the trip that we get to like five blocks from the destination. So what we are focusing on is, We give the right torque, right tip based on the treatment plan the doctor approved, and we try to get the doctor exactly to their destination to save the time and also during this procedure, we have a digital system, and I don't think anybody.
I don't think anybody can disagree that in the future, while everything is going to be digital, there is no way that orthodonts is still like eyeball the brackets on the teeth. They don't use a bonding tray, and they don't plan everything ahead of the time, you know, with traditional braces still, but maybe it's not the most efficient way. When each visit you look at the patient and you decide what needs to be done, or for example, there is a bolt and discrepancy.
You notice that after like one year or one and a half years and start. Like doing IPR. But when you have a digital system, from the beginning, you think it through. You know you're gonna do the IPR, You're gonna do this general mechanotherapy to get to your destination, you know, your final alignment, how it looks.
So I believe that's the future digital orthodontics.
Dean Steinman
I agree, it's not the my eyes, it's the present. It's not even the future, it's now. And if you're not, if you're still analog, forget it.
You know you've got to be digital. At least and then go from that. And now let's take the next step. You've got your head analog, you've got digital, and now let's talk about those two wonderful letters.
AI. All right, it's everywhere obviously now it touching every single thing here. So what I want to find out is tell me how is AI improving orthodontic treatment planning? That wasn't a bit done before because AI has been around for a while, it just hasn't been so integrated. So how is AI changing and improving what the orthodontics?
Dr. Mehdi Peikar
Yeah, actually that's a great question and maybe the most general question.
You know, how it's going to change our lives. It's not gonna be just orthodontics, it's going to be everything. And I just said AI has been around for a long time. The general idea, the basic concept has been around for like fifty sixty years.
But I would say like in twenty eleven, like AI scientists, they learned that it's really working. And it's kind of funny that they use GPUs and GPUs are basically for gamers and Nvidia. You know, all of us have heard about Nvidia and Vidia kind of survived because of the gamers and they were purchasing GPUs, right, and that really pushed AI to the next level. And LLM's large language models.
I would say, like a lot of people are using that, but that's just the beginning. And in the software, agents are coming already last year and this year they're coming. Agents are a big part of everything. But now if you want to focus on orthodontics and why AI in orthodontics, you know, we can talk about our lives and robots and everything, but if you focus on AI in orthodontics, you know, for the virtual treatment plan, the moment that, You scan, AI starts.
You know, AI needs to know this tooth is a molar, this one a canine, This is the incisor, and what is the direction? With side is buckle, with side is lingual. So AI needs to know all these things, and that's what we have in our software. The AI knows detects everything and sections all these things.
And as I said, like buckle, lingual, everything should be understood by the AI, and then after that teeth should be aligned. So aligning the teeth involves AI. And obviously sometimes I make this joke. If you have like a patient and we have like ten doctors in a room, they come up with eleven treatment plans and each of us believe that, you know, this is the right treatment plan.
But you know, like we can with AI, we can't get to the general idea. And then still you know, maybe a human should be involved, or in the future, AI is going to be involved to get the treatment plan to where the doctor wants it. And then we need to put the brackets on. You know, with traditional braces, you only have a standard way of putting the brackets in the middle or like based on your prescription.
But with Celebrates, in. Our software, because we three 3D the bracket, you don't have to put the bracket in the middle of the tooth. You can't put you have a lot of flexibility. You can put it wherever you want.
So that really helps because sometimes the patient bites on the bracket and the patient here or she breaks the bracket, But if you can move the bracket around, you can avoid those collisions, so that removes a lot of headache in celebrace. With Celebrates, we can remove a lot of headache for the doctor in the clinic and remove these breakages. So you know, AI is based involved in all of these things. And then the other part I didn't even talk about is diagnosis, you know, like when the AI because you know, in our software, optionally you can submit the CBCT and you can.
Our software detects the roots the bone and basically comes up with a diagnosis too. But again orthodontists decides what the treatment plan should be. But with the AI, we detect all these things.
We come up with diagnosis too. So AI is part of all the steps, every single step AI is involved. And then we have manufacturing. We're going to 3D print the brackets and we're gonna 3D print the IDBs, designing those brackets, designing those IDBs.
You know AI is involved there and it's going to be part of it.
Dean Steinman
I think it's the problem with everything. It's a big, big part of my job. But what I do from a marketing perspective, and you know, if you have to adapt, you have to do that. But if people are afraid of that, so let's talk about that. So what would you think of the most will practice owners? What's the biggest misunderstanding or misconception about AI in the industry? Because everybody's free is able to jump right in.
So what would you. Say are the two biggest you know, misconceptions or misunderstandings evolving AI.
Dr. Mehdi Peikar
Yeah, that's a very good question. I would say for one one one of them is like the dystopian world some people like think about like AI.
You know they're going to like attack us, and there are real concerns about AI that you know, it might things might go bad. That's absolutely right. But the other misconception is when a new technology comes, if we don't embrace it. Sometimes they're going to be behind.
And you know a lot. Of people talk about this that those people who AI will not substitute us, those people who use AI will substitute us. So we have to embrace AI. When when you have AI, everything is going to be way more efficient and like it's by day, like just I'm talking about like the software, the improvement that has happened in the last like two months, just two months, is crazy?
Dean Steinman
Is it right? Isn't it a fast right? It took us, you know, twenty years to get where we have it two months?
Dr. Mehdi Peikar
It is? It is absolutely right.
Like the improvement that they have in the last it's exponential. It's and sometimes when something is exponential, it's really hard to predict what happens in the future. But the fact that I really believe in is that we have to embrace it. We cannot just say, you know, I don't trust it, I don't want to use it.
If you don't use it, you're going to be behind. We have to definitely take care of it. And you know, we have had similar situations one hundred years ago when cars came. You know, if you wanted to insist that I'm going to ride my horse.
You know you're going to be behind. But back then it was much slower. When Internet came, and like I'll be like a lot of doctors or like in different businesses, they were like, I'm not going to use a computer. You know, I have like hard copy.
You know, I'm going to use that if if you had, you know, those people who didn't embrace computer, they were behind. And then Internet came and then mobile phones cell phones came. So you know, if. If we don't try to catch up with technology, we're going to be behind.
And because the pace is much faster, you know, because like internet came and it took like several years, or like self, like smartphones came, it took like a while. But right now, AI is the pace is very fast.
Dean Steinman
It's crazy. Yeah.
So you know, one of the biggest issues I have when it comes to marketing is figuring out how to differentiate a practice and I make them stand out for my competition. So what would you say would be one one value that celebrace brings to a practice that could help them stand out from a crowded market and position them differently. What's one thing that practice could put what works with you can really sink their teeth into and say, my practice is better when you're gonna get better results. And we're different because celebrats.
So what's one thing that that go hand in hand?
Dr. Mehdi Peikar
Yeah, sure, you know. Actually, you know, I've been an orthodontist since twenty ten, but like in the US, I graduated from UCLA again, like in twenty nineteen. I've been orthodontist for a while. But last year I started my clinic.
And you know, in the area that I am in Dallas, which is very saturated, you know, there were some other orthodontists they have been here for like twenty years, like everybody know them. Everybody knows them, and some patients came to my clinic, and you know, I was using my celebrations.
To in the consult room. Basically, what we do in our clinic for consults, when the patient comes, we take the cb CIT, we take the scans, we take the photos, and then we put everything in the software and after a few minutes, everything is ready in the software. So when I go to the consult room, I'm not presenting like with photos, I'm not presenting on the scanner. I'm presenting on the celebrated software. And when we explain everything is custom, everything is modern.
Everything you know, we have like high end technology here. It's very clear to me. A lot of patients say, wow, you know I went to like this doctor that has been here for a while and I was treated there and my daughter that I'm like trying to find an orthodontics. I came here just for a second opinion, and it's obvious for me I should come here.
So I think this is very important. And like if you want to talk about aligners, like in 2010, if you did aligners, you were ahead of others because you could show that you have a technology and you only have these others don't have it. And this is the same for braces. If you have a digital system like Celebrace, you can brag that, but you know you'll have it just for a few years. You can be ahead of others. And you know, I was talking to this orthodontist that you know started his hair practice in San Francisco and she was like, I graduated in like 2009.
I don't remember the exact year, but around that those years, and I was the only one who was offering in visionline back then. And then my practice grew. I didn't expect it because I had this new technology. And this is the same if the patient comes to your clinic and they see that, you know, it looks like twenty years ago or ten years ago,
Dean Steinman
We get it old school, but you know, any younger practice or that not younger. But in order position yourself differently, you have to show that you're up on technology and give and give different results. You have to do the same thing over and over again. Absolutely, So I'm gonna ask you to put your your special classes on and we're gonna look into the future two years right.
Where do you see the the or orthodontic industry in two years now?
Dr. Mehdi Peikar
Yeah? So obviously there's gonna be a lot of AI. And this AI is not going to be just you know, celebrace or like our device management software. Like if somebody calls you, an AI will respond. If somebody like messages you on your website and AI response, And there's gonna be definitely way more digital orthonotics.
And whenever it's digital, there's gonna be a lot of AI. I'm not sure about like when robots come, but they're coming to uh, you know, at some point robots are going to be because it's in the physical world. In the ADAM world, that's way more expensive and it's harder to have that. And you know, we have a lot of AI in our other softwares, but like for example, we don't have AI in our physical products, like our brackets.
They're like NBT, they're not like that smart. And you know, we'll, we'll see. That's the way I see things like this is my vision that you know, we're going to have the products physical products like Celebrates brackets or like the IDBs that AI is in the physical product. It's not just the software anymore.
So soon in the next few years, we're going to see the results of AI in our physical world too. It's not just software or cell phone.
Dean Steinman
It's got, it's got tentacles into everything. So I love that you're an entrepreneur, you know, and you come up with all this new platform.
So what bit of advice could would you give a a dentist or a dentist who wants to take the next step either have multiple locations to expands entrepreneurship or dive into a technology like this. What's one big advice you would tell somebody to do if they wanted to step out of the comfort zone.
Yeah, sure, this is very important. And you know, like some people say, the most important sign of intelligence is when you adapt.
And maybe if you were an orthodontist thirty years ago, you didn't have to adapt that quickly, but right. Now is different. You as an orthodontists really need to adapt very quickly. And things change by sometimes it doesn't change like even by year.
It's like by month. Like every month a new in comes. We should try not to be overwhelmed. And I understand it.
It's overwhelming sometimes, like there's a lot of things information, but we should start from something, you know, like we have to start like to modernize our clinic, embrace technology, embrace AI to be able to and you know, you don't have to like suddenly do everything at you know, like little by little, do a small c course, learn this new technology, look at this management software, and like obviously like with devices like celebrace, obviously you know, this is something that I am like obsessed with, but I cannot see anything else other than like like a digital orthodontic system in my clinic.
Dean Steinman
Can imagine, right, you can't. Once you've seen the future and you see, now, how could you even think of going back? You know.
Dr. Mehdi Peikar
Exactly exactly.
Dean Steinman
But thank you so much for for all this influences.
Great. So, now if somebody wants to learn more and say, yeah, I want to do it demo, we'll learn more about Celebrates. What's the best way for them to go about doing so?
Dr. Mehdi Peikar
Yeah, sure, so you can. Maybe the website is a very good way to start.
You can go to celebrate dot com or you can email us support at celebrace.com, or you can email us support@celebrace.com, And you know we're going to get in touch with you. Just put your phone number or email there and then we can our sales team. You have a great sales team.
They can reach out to you and we can go from there.
Dean Steinman
Perfect right, Thank you so much, and I wish you all the best in this in this endeavor here and guys, this is a game changer. You know, if you're not adapting your practice as you mentioned, you know, when you've heard me many many times, adapt or die. And if you're not adapting and taking the next step and getting out of your comfort zone, you won't get to where you want to be.
This is not twenty seventeen, twenty twelve, twenty This is twenty twenty five. A lot of competition, lots of technologies, lots of exporting things, coming in focus on what you do best, adapt and you will see the light. So pickar, Thank you so much. Appreciate everybody in podcast land once to thank you so much for being a loyal listener, for all of the information, for all of the comments, and for being a supporting of here at all of marketing. So everybody out there keep smiling. Thanks so much, and everybody be happy.
