Arterial

Promoting in-person patient interactions through AI

Arterial formed in Adelaide in July 2024, when co-founders Anis Pakrou and Danny Bhaskaran found that reception desks were brimming beyond capacity with phone calls (and a high portion of receptionist’s time) was spent answering in-bound calls. After partnering with a dental practice owner, Danny and Anis set out to build a virtual receptionist that books patients around the clock.

Benefits

Conversational AI – delivers human-like phone interactions for better patient engagement
24/7 availability - never puts a patient on hold
Clinic-specific knowledge – provides accurate, tailored responses
Seamless integration – directly links with practice management software.

Technology

Arterial is a virtual receptionist built specifically for dental clinics, combining advanced speech AI with tailored appointment workflows. Unlike chatbots or interactive voice response (IVR) menus, it holds natural, human-like phone conversations and integrates directly with dental software to manage bookings in real time. What makes it unique is the combination of tailored infrastructure, a custom-built logic layer, clinic-specific knowledge, a live analytics dashboard and SMS agent. Arterial is fast, accurate, and operates 24/7—designed from the ground up to handle real-world dental reception tasks, not just talk like a human, but act like one too.

Potential markets

Arterial is focused on the Australian dental industry, where clinics face high call volumes and rising staffing costs. With increasing demand for 24/7 service and patient preference for digital communication, the market is primed for AI solutions. They plan to expand into other appointment-based healthcare sectors such as physiotherapy and medical clinics, where similar inefficiencies exist.

Partnering opportunities

Arterial are currently seeking partnerships with corporate dental groups, individual practice owners, and providers of dental practice management software to scale their solution across the industry. As they grow, they’re also looking to collaborate with health clinics more broadly to expand Arterial beyond dentistry into other appointment-based healthcare sectors.