Julia.ai, a new AI-driven buyer-practice matchmaker, is poised to change the way DSOs in expansion mode find the right dental practices, boosting efficacy with ranked opportunities
I recently attended a Las Vegas business conference with dealmakers, including investment bankers, attorneys and CPAs representing many different industries. AI agents were a frequent topic of conversation. People shared how they use machine learning tools and large language models to execute certain tasks, like creating appraisals or producing documents that explain various EBITDA calculation methods.
Interestingly, no one mentioned an AI agent that helps with matchmaking between buyers and sellers. Maybe that’s because such a tool hasn’t been available until now. I know because my company developed an AI matchmaker for the dental sector, and it’s already boosting our deal closure rates by 15%. Here’s a look at how that can help DSOs grow more efficiently.
How AI Drives Deal Closure Rates Higher
Professional Transition Strategies (PTS) made significant investments and worked with a noted AI specialist to build Julia.ai, our patent-pending AI matchmaking tool. We launched the matchmaker in February 2025 as the industry’s first deep-learning, AI-powered tool designed specifically to facilitate dental practice transitions.
Julia.ai has already improved deal closure rates by about 15%, and we’re just getting started. It was so successful right out of the gate because it combines the proprietary knowledge we gained over the years by closing almost a thousand practice transitions with publicly available data and input from potential buyers and sellers.
Julia.ai is unique because it analyzes quantitative data like finances and market trends as well as qualitative information like doctor preferences and business culture. The AI matchmaker also learns over time, ingesting new data from each transaction and other sources of information as it becomes available to get more precise in its targeting.
Because Julia.ai sees everything in the sector, everywhere, all at once, it can spot opportunities faster than humans can. Julia.ai produces ranked lists of opportunities so that brokers can zero in on the most likely matches more quickly. This efficacy benefits busy buyers and sellers.
A More Strategic and Efficient Buyer-Broker Relationship
The PTS team works with dental practice owners selling their practice and with prospective buyers, facilitating DSO transactions and working with multiple stakeholders to enact dental practice roll-ups. The human touch is important, so brokers will always play an essential role, but Julia.ai helps them work more efficiently and effectively, ensuring no stone is left unturned.
Like all successful AI tools (think Copilot or Siri), Julia.ai works because it accesses comprehensive, accurate data. The AI matchmaker’s buyer profile contains about 30 fields, including information like the region the DSO operates in and the specialties it serves. Julia.ai identifies the most salient characteristics to help brokers find the right matches quickly.
To identify and rank the best opportunities, Julia.ai also factors in details like EBITDA calculations if a seller wants to stay with the practice after an acquisition and doctors’ objectives. Since it learns and stays current on market trends and buyer preferences, Julia.ai can adapt when buyer priorities change, such as when a DSO expands into neighboring states, targets new regions and forays into new specialties. This allows buyers to move confidently in a new direction based on accurate data.
Using Julia.ai also enhances the broker’s ability to help buyers meet their goals by identifying matches that might have otherwise fallen through the cracks. For example, say a buyer goes on vacation and inadvertently misses a listing in an email blast. If the opportunity ranks high on Julia.ai’s match likelihood score, the broker will follow up quickly.
Julia.ai also analyzes signed letters of intent, evaluating the characteristics of closed deals to surface similar opportunities if, for example, the buyer expands into a new region or specialty area. This makes the broker-buyer relationship more productive, leading to faster DSO growth.
AI Matchmaker Adds Insight Throughout the DSO Lifecycle
The AI matchmaker helps brokers find the most efficacious route to reach client objectives, whether clients are in buyer or seller mode, efficiently supporting DSOs at each phase of the growth cycle. When PTS brokers work with DSOs to acquire new practices, Julia.ai helps them find high-potential matches fast so the organization can scale up quickly.
With insights from Julia.ai, brokers can also help DSOs capitalize on consolidation when it’s time to transact to private equity for an optimal exit.Using proprietary PTS data as well as publicly available information, Julia.ai helps brokers guide DSOs through the seller experience too, providing an advantage at every stage of the life cycle.
The Big Picture: AI Helps Build a More Unified DSO
The best DSOs aren’t random collections of disparate dental practices. They are businesses with separate operating units that combine to form a cohesive whole. When DSO buyers evaluate new opportunities, they look for practices that fit the company’s vision.
Julia.ai is built to find exactly those types of opportunities. It blends “hard” business data like P&L and EBITDA with “soft” information like patient care philosophy, management style and practice transition objectives. Brokers equipped with this information can help buyers make the right decisions more quickly and meet DSO business objectives, even as priorities change.
The dealmakers at the Las Vegas conference may not be talking about matchmaking as an AI agent service yet, but I predict they will soon. Julia.ai functions as an AI agent, allowing brokers to accelerate the search for the perfect practice for DSO partners. Julia.ai doesn’t miss an opportunity, and that’s a super power humans without it can’t match.
