Every year, the editors of TIME magazine go on a global search for the inventions that are “changing how we live” — from OpenAI’s ChatGPT, to NASA’s TEMPO, to LEGO’s Braille Bricks.
And this year, we’re very proud to announce that Overjet has been named one of the TIME Best Inventions of 2024!
Our mission at Overjet is simple: We want to improve oral health for all, through artificial intelligence (AI). We’ve made a lot of progress since we started in 2018. Today, thousands of dental organizations use Overjet to care for millions of patients, with our AI platform that quantifies and visualizes oral health like never before.
But until recently, this revolution in dental care did not extend to young children. Their anatomy — often a combination of primary and permanent teeth — required us to build new AI technology, and then obtain new clearances from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
So that’s what we did. In March 2024, we launched Overjet for Kids, the first and only technology that is cleared by the FDA to detect, outline, and quantify tooth decay in children ages 4 and above. Six months later, TIME has specifically recognized Overjet for Kids as one of the world’s best inventions.
“Dental X-rays can be tricky for patients—especially kids—to understand,” said Jeff Wilser, who wrote Overjet’s feature in TIME. “And if the patient is confused, then complying with the dentist’s instructions (like wearing a mouthguard) is less likely. So the FDA-cleared Overjet uses AI to create a visual overlay of images that dentists can show young patients, clearly marking cavities in red, exposed nerves in purple, and so on. The system also makes it easier for dentists to spot problems.”
Overjet has proven to be a critical leap forward in pediatric dentistry, not only for children but also for their parents, who can now truly understand their dentists’ recommendations. Here’s why we’re so passionate about solving this challenge:
EARLY DECAY, FUTURE PROBLEMS
Tooth decay remains the most prevalent chronic disease in the United States: 90% of American adults have had at least one cavity. Alarmingly, many studies have linked poor oral health to serious health issues later in life, including heart disease and cancer.
The good news is, cavities can often be prevented by noninvasive treatments — if we can catch and treat the decay at an early stage.
Dentists face two major battles in this fight against cavities: early detection and patient education. Incipient caries, the medical term for the initial stage of tooth decay, can be extremely subtle on grayscale X-rays; it appears as a small, slightly darker region of gray. This makes it difficult for dentists to consistently detect incipient caries in young patients, before it develops and requires surgery.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle, though, is patient education. Because parents can’t understand normal X-rays, dentists often struggle to convince them that their children need intervention. The end result is that parents decline about 50% of dentists’ recommendations.
Clearly, something had to change.
OVERJET FOR KIDS TO THE RESCUE
Overjet for Kids combats these challenges with the most advanced artificial intelligence built for dentistry. Already, it has dramatically raised the bar for both diagnostic precision and patient education.
In technical terms, Overjet for Kids is the combination of two groundbreaking clearances from the FDA:
The first clearance enables Overjet to detect, outline, and quantify tooth decay in children ages 4 and above, in primary and permanent teeth.
The second clearance enables Overjet to highlight key dental structures in children’s X-rays, including anatomy like enamel and pulp, as well as previous restorations, like crowns and fillings.
It’s been incredible to witness the impact of this technology in year one. In the clinical trials we performed for the FDA, 100% of dentists were more accurate in detecting cavities when assisted by Overjet for Kids, compared to their performance without it. And in the real world, our customers have seen their case acceptance rise by more than 25%.
“My favorite thing about Overjet for Kids is the early detection,” said Dr. Matt Hicks of The Airway Dentists. “If we catch it early, kids can change their habits at home first, before we have to go in and do any irreversible work. And at the same time, our case acceptance has gone up, because parents can just see so much more.”
Ultimately, we believe that TIME named Overjet for Kids to its Best Inventions list because it allows parents to deeply understand their children’s oral health. It lets them truly be a part of the conversation, so they’re empowered to make informed decisions about the right care.
“I have been describing X-rays my entire career,” said Dr. Stephanie Serpa of Kids First Pediatric Dentistry. “AI [can] show the patient and the parent a map of what I’ve been trying to describe — but a colorful map. A picture says 1,000 words. As much as I describe it, AI can actually show it.”
