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There is nowadays a paradox in the dental market as the most advanced treatments and materials are found in digital dentistry but only a minority of dental practices are digitalized. Factors which may be impairing a more widespread use of technology in dentistry include investment costs, technical education, and cultural resistance to change. There can be a misconception among dentists that in order to use digital technology, one must first invest large amounts of money and that the return on investment would be hard to obtain.

The reality is that virtually any dental practice can offer digital treatments, not necessarily initially producing their own work in house but outsourcing to third‐party clinics or laboratories more advanced in digitalization. Other possibilities can start with mobile phones, by using dedicated apps that allow smile planning, for example. The complete digital clinic, in which every single procedure is conducted with digital equipment, delivering automated, standardized, cheaper, and reliable results, is beginning to be suggested as a feasible idea by some research findings [9, 10].

The actual digital clinic may be situated somewhere between the two extremes of lack of adoption and large investment for hard users. In a more realistic approach, the dental clinic and dental professionals can be digitalized in different levels. For instance, one orthodontic clinic may be digitalized for intraoral scans only, outsourcing the set‐up, planning, and fabrication of aligners. Meanwhile another clinic is able to deliver same‐day restorations produced with in‐house equipment and personnel. The decision on the degree of digitalization for the practice will depend on the specialty of the dental clinic and the focus on their more specific needs.