AI Is Taking Over Aesthetics. Are You Still In Denial?

Announcer (00:06):
You are listening to the Aesthetically Speaking podcast presented by Nextech.

Tyler Terry (00:14):
Hey guys, welcome back to the Aesthetically Speaking podcast. We are in beautiful New Orleans at the ASPS meeting, the annual meeting here, and I am here with my amazing co-host Robin Ntoh, and we are excited to come to you live from the show.

Robin Ntoh (00:33):
So exciting, Tyler, it's always great to you and I get on the show together and talk about just the industry and what's going on. And I know last year when we did this, it seems like it's been a year, it's been a minute. It's fascinating to be on the show floor, read the room, so to speak, but then gain those insights and try to interpret them.

Tyler Terry (00:56):
Yes, try to

Robin Ntoh (00:57):
Try to, anyway. But we also have the insights from many meetings that we attend, whereas some of these people that are attending only attend this meeting or they don't cross over into different specialties, so we cross over into many aesthetic specialties. So I think that those insights that we're able to gain allow us to compare and contrast.

Tyler Terry (01:19):
It's true.

Robin Ntoh (01:20):
We've got a lot to talk about today. So let's talk about ai. Let's do it. That is what everybody is talking about these days. In fact, just hosted a podcast on SEO is dead and we're AI is really impacting that, so we're not going to talk about that. But I think about a year ago, yes, AI was a topic of conversation, but I don't think people really knew what they were going to do with it. We see a SMA arena, but we still don't see a lot of companies here that are representative of it. But I think there's some interesting things that are going on that really are starting to gain some credibility and they're more relative to what we want to do. Let's talk about chatGPT.

Tyler Terry (02:02):
Let's do it.

Robin Ntoh (02:02):
And chatGPT is, I mean, I felt guilty when I started using it because I'm like, am I cheating?

Tyler Terry (02:09):
That's how I felt too. And even knowing when to tell people, I use AI for this, or you'll be like, I did this. And then you're like with ai, and now we're starting to learn like, oh, I don't need to tell you that I used AI to build this. I built this, I directed it. We're almost becoming more of the producer producing the act, the play, more so than being on stage, if you will. And that's how I'm starting to see how people are embracing AI is I am conducting the play, I'm conducting the content.

Robin Ntoh (02:45):
You really spin that well, and I think let's start with Nextech as a business. I think that what we've done as a business is we've actually really almost forced education and a level of compliance around it within our own business. And you've been a champion. So why don't you share? Because I think it's fascinating some of the things that you've done, and it comes back to what you've trained AI to help you do, to help you become more efficient. Because operationalizing where AI is focused and how it helps you is a very big component of where you're not cheating. You're actually, I would say if you're not using it, then you're being inefficient these days.

Tyler Terry (03:27):
Yeah, you really are. And thank you so much for saying that. And I was actually looking at my online learning dashboard earlier today, and I completed all of my AI courses and I was like, wow, I actually learned quite a bit, and I was one of the first to utilize chatGPT in November, 2022 when it first launched. And I was like, what is this? Is this magic? But anyways, one of the ways that I've used it as a sales leader is in creating an agent, and when you start to learn about agents, it takes you into a whole new world of ai. And there's a lot of worlds with ai, but with this, being able to train an agent on a specific use case, and for my team, what we were trying to do was become more educated about who we're selling to. What I did was I trained my agent on what I was looking for.

(04:17):
I wanted to understand how many locations the practice had, how many providers they had of those providers who were the injectors. So I would say, okay, there are four providers. Two of them inject, there's one owner. And it would also look for do they offer patient financing? Oh, they do. So they offer CareCredit and Cherry. Okay. How many services do they offer? Well, they offer 15 services, but they just launched Sciton, BBL, MOXI last year in 2024. But what I trained it to do was to list a report. So my team now they have access to this agent and just like you're sharing a PowerPoint or you're sharing an Excel spreadsheet, you can share an agent with your teams, and now this agent is making them more efficient. So instead of them having to go and look at the website and spend 20 minutes or so getting all of this intel now, they just go get the website, they plug it into the agent, the agent within 20 to 30 seconds spits out this report and it gives them all this data on they offer.

(05:23):
They have a patient portal, they offer care credit, they offer all these different things. This is how long they've been in business, this is how many locations they have, all the things that we would ever know. So now when we show up to our meeting, we're that much more armed and prepared, and we can also spend more time doing other things more efficiently and effectively. But that's one of many use cases. But that for my team has already saved us, again, 20 minutes per demo and we're doing mini demos a day, so it all adds up.

Robin Ntoh (05:53):
So Tyler, you lead the Med Spa team, and I think from a sales perspective, phenomenal use case. We've actually then transferred some of that into the med spa education when we implement. And so what that team has actually done is they have built an agent to actually facilitate on the setup. So it takes the work off of the practice administrator or a lot of times meds, spas we know are small, and you've got a provider that's just really trying to launch their business and they're trying to be a provider that's injecting to make money to pay the bills. But then they've got all these business decisions to make and they've got to set up their software and they've got to learn how to use it. And the complexities can be frustrating. So we're looking at different ways to take the burden off of some of that setup that's already information that we can gain access to maybe on their website and using that to build out some of the things that they would've normally had to do manually. So I mean, the operational side of AI and practices like we're looking at next, tech is key, and I think practices need to run to this.

Tyler Terry (07:05):
Yes, I couldn't agree more. So I was thinking about what was another major shift, and you and I are huge Disney fans.

Robin Ntoh (07:14):
That's right.

Tyler Terry (07:15):
I think

Robin Ntoh (07:15):
No secret there.

Tyler Terry (07:17):
Well, I think of one of my, it is my favorite movie, Toy Story being one of the first computer animated films. And how do you think it felt back in the mid nineties being an animator and seeing if you're working for another company and seeing Pixar come out with what they did, was that still their work? Were they still putting that touch of animation, comparing that to the Lion King? Was that less of an animated movie? No, it wasn't. And we embraced it. And there's beauty in both still.

Robin Ntoh (07:54):
Yeah. I think that we've got to really lean into it. Nextech is also thinking about AI. Everybody talks about the charting experience and the big buzzword is they want AI describe and okay, let's talk about that. Does AI scribing in the aesthetics arena fit?

Tyler Terry (08:12):
Yeah, does it belong?

Robin Ntoh (08:13):
Does it belong there? Is it the right answer right now? Okay, so yeah, Nextech's built AI scribing and we built it for our ophthalmology practices because that's a major part of our specialties that we serve. And more standardized in the way you think about healthcare and medicine and the way that you think about that patient journey within that practice. We all know aesthetics is different. I mean, I think about practices that are charting, and one of the things that they're dealing with is conversations that happen in the room that may not be considered medical. Like they're talking about things happening in their life, whether there's been a death or a wedding coming up, but how they feel about something that's context to state of mind where AI may not capture that because it doesn't consider that medical information. But at the end of the day, physicians would generally want that information. They want to know that, not all of it, but they want to know that.

Tyler Terry (09:16):
Yeah, its vital.

Robin Ntoh (09:18):
It's vital. So I say that to say, is that the first thing that we want as an answer for AI in the clinic, in the exam room? Or is there something better? And that's where Nextech is doing some really unique things. I think.

Tyler Terry (09:32):
Robin, I already have a lot of questions for you, but I want to, we're talking about compliance a little bit, and Robin has been a road warrior for Nextech going to back to back meetings, and she was just barely at the Women in Aesthetic Leadership Conference last week in Southern California, I believe, and got a lot of intel. And they were also very lucky to have her as she's one of our key leaders at Nextech with so much experience. But I want to ask you this, can you share a few pearls of what you learned there and some things that relate to compliance with med spa?

Robin Ntoh (10:08):
Absolutely. So we had the opportunity to host an ad board. So it was 20 women that are significant leaders in the med spa space. So we would consider them been in practice for probably two plus years, some of them 10 plus years. And so they've got a lot of experience, but these were not Nextech users specifically or intentionally. They were part of the Women in Aesthetics Leadership conference and chose to participate in ad boards. And so there was a few different ad boards that were available to them for that as an option. And so the women that chose to be in this one, they actually chose it and they were from many different platforms. And we did some survey and we wanted to understand what are the topics we should talk about. But one of the things that really resonated was compliance, but also charting. And they also said, which was fascinating, they did not think that AI was the answer.

Tyler Terry (11:06):
What did they say?

Robin Ntoh (11:08):
Well, they're concerned, is AI going to provide or force them to still have more work because they're not certain they trust that it's going to capture all or less or what they need it to. And so that's what we're looking at at Nextech is what does the industry want, what is necessary for them? And that voice of customer is relevant when you're thinking about how your platform continues to expand. If we just think about it from our perspective, that doesn't necessarily provide the right solution for our customers. So that's why we have ad boards. That's why we have an aesthetics advisory committee that we meet with monthly to talk about the compliance issues. And again, one of the other things that I thought was astonishing is they talked about consents and the struggles around consenting, and I know doctors that actually will provide or say, I'm only going to consent once a year. It goes back to what does your state require? What does your medical malpractice require? And are you willing to take any risks? At the end of the day, it was a topic of conversation that we as a business want to go back and think about that some more.

Tyler Terry (12:18):
Wow. So many things to unpack there. One thing that caught my eye was some of the providers weren't willing to just so quickly give up that driver's seat of charting with their patients to AI so quickly. And you would think, I would've thought, oh, they'll love that. It's going to save them time. But that driver's seat is so important because it's much more than just charting. There's also a conversation to it. Is the AI creating more work? Are they charting the way that they would be charting? Would that communicate with the front desk and the providers and all the different things? So I actually really appreciate the thoughtfulness of questioning it. And also Nextech's approach with trying to be very thoughtful and mindful, and it's not about being first to market, it's being best to market.

Robin Ntoh (13:14):
Let's talk about wellness. Tell me what you're seeing just in this arena around the practices that your team is dealing with and the questions that they're asking. And because a level of complexity, that's fascinating.

Tyler Terry (13:29):
So what I'm seeing and what my team's seeing is with the rise in competition comes the need for greater differentiation. And with that differentiation, they're more receptive to trying to be first to market or even to start to add services that they didn't start their practice to offer, but they see the need for it. They see that peptides are being asked for by patients and they don't offer it, and they're like, actually, this is something we should offer, or GLP ones, that's something that they have a handful of patients asking about, and then they start to offer it. And that is why I think we're starting to see this cross-pollination between the two because patients are beginning to, well, one, they want that monthly subscription, they want the membership, and they're like, well, I'm not going to pay two memberships. I should pay one membership. And if I'm paying one membership, well then I would expect the practice that I'm choosing to offer things that I think are table stakes, right?

Robin Ntoh (14:30):
Well, it's total body if you think about it. So take your GLP ones. They're losing weight, they're feeling better, so they want to look better and they want to feel better inside, not just from their weight loss, but now it's okay, let's think about the peptides. Let's think about all these other components of wellness that if you think about it, wellness has been around for many, many years. The GLP ones are a recent addition to that whole spectrum of services provided in the med spas and in our plastic surgery practices that I think have actually elevated the opportunity for wellness. And I would argue that people practices are bringing wellness into their business because of the outcomes of GLP-1.

Tyler Terry (15:14):
Yes. Yes. That's such a great point. And you go and have this amazing experience with GLP one, and then you have a need for surgery after. Or there's also, on the flip side, you go and have an amazing result with an amazing surgeon and you want to come back, but you might not have something to come back for. And they're wanting that they're begging for it. And if not, then that incredible surgeon misses out, not misses the mark, but they just miss out on the opportunity to have another patient for life. Yeah. It's such an interesting time where we haven't, I don't think anybody's truly identified, what do we even call this market? Not really even just the aesthetic market. It's not the wellness market.

Robin Ntoh (16:01):
Gone are the days of just thinking about going to your primary care physician once a year. People are truly thinking about their total body, not just the way they look on the outside, but how they feel inside. And yes, that's not new, but now it's truly a driving force in the market. And you've got, I mean, how many energy based devices are out there Tyler?

Tyler Terry (16:28):
So many. Can't even keep up with them honestly

Robin Ntoh (16:30):
Mean that's part of it, that's supporting it and fueling it, and the demand is just there. We're not going to see, we're not going to see med spas dwindle a number.

Tyler Terry (16:40):
No, they're going to keep rising.

Robin Ntoh (16:42):
All you're doing is creating more choices for your prospects. And if you think about it, I mean, what makes you different? It's not just the paint on the wall or the art that you're using. What truly makes you different. This is where practices are going to get really intentional about everything and anything. If they aren't now, they should be.

(17:08):
Get very intentional about what are the things that are going to allow me to differentiate. But I think what's really important here is you capture the patient, and there's a lot of emphasis right now in just getting the new customers, but I still would say that practices are not doing their best to retain people. What are you seeing? What are you hearing in the practices that you're dealing with? And I recognize that so much of that is part of what TouchMD developed is outpatient retention. But I think that there's more to it that people should be doing and could be doing it.

Tyler Terry (17:47):
Yeah. No, I think it's a great question and a great point to talk about. So what I'm seeing is it's really trying to find things that fill the cracks and what are the cracks? Well, the first crack would be how long after a patient leaves my practice, do I reach out to them again to check in on them and to make sure that they're coming back in? Another crack would be, if I miss their call, are they automatically getting a text? And how many missed calls do we have because we want to be busy, and if we're doing great on the phones, that's going to happen. We don't want to miss the mark because there are a certain amount of patients who if you miss their call, they're going to jump to the next practice potentially. Hopefully they're just going to stay with you. But really what I'm seeing are,

Robin Ntoh (18:34):
Well, not every patient's going to be a member, so they might jump ship, and we know that there's a generational component to that as well.

Tyler Terry (18:42):
Yes.

Robin Ntoh (18:42):
We can't ignore that. So you bring up a really solid point. What do we do about it?

Tyler Terry (18:48):
What we do is we continue to find ways to automate and streamline. So how do we not drop the ball? Really, we want to make sure that we never drop the ball or miss the mark. And when we do that, we have a technology in place to ensure that we're all humans. We're all going to forget something, right? We're all going to write down a sticky note. Even when we have software, I'm guilty of that too. But if we have our technology stack in place, that technology stack is going to follow up and really ensure that we're buttoned up and laser focused with our technology that we've launched here this year with Nextech. Again, Nextech was very thoughtful with how we went to market with our CRM and ensuring that it integrated in ways that other CRMs can't integrate. There's that middleware, keyword middleware that allows our CRM to do things that no other CRM can do, and that's very important. If you're listening to this, be sure to ask about that middleware, but

Robin Ntoh (19:54):
Well, it's bi-directional.

Tyler Terry (19:55):
It's bi-directional.

Robin Ntoh (19:55):
It's not just going one way.

Tyler Terry (19:57):
Yes.

Robin Ntoh (19:57):
And that's right. That's a critical component.

Tyler Terry (20:00):
Critical component because if you have a CRM and you have an EHR technology or practice management system, you want that bi-directional integration, and once you experience it one time, it's something that you'll never go back on. It's the heated seats that you can't live without.

Robin Ntoh (20:17):
I am never buying a car again without heated seats. I'll just put that out there. Never. That is a requirement.

Tyler Terry (20:24):
It's a thing. Yeah, so you live in Las Vegas, you know that you need cooled seats and you don't have black leather seats. But yeah, it's really ensuring that we're buttoned up, we're buttoned up with our follow-up, that we're making sure that we have cadences and systems built out so that we're following up accordingly via text, via email, with our technologies. At Nextech, we have the app to where we can market to the patient via a push notification. We can remind them to review that pre or post-op instruction, but then you mentioned that a generational patient will, we're going to be able to tailor our outreach based on the generation.

Robin Ntoh (21:03):
That's powerful.

Tyler Terry (21:03):
And that is what you should be doing. It shouldn't be cookie cutter at all. It should be tailored to the generation with the appropriate tech stack.

Robin Ntoh (21:12):
You bring up a really good point. I think that practices don't focus on the generations, let alone do. They don't even focus on how they manage the patients when they're in office and how they communicate with them. That's one of my hot topics, but you bring up a really good point. Do you retain your patients well and do you think about your retention based upon generation? Because I would challenge practices to actually measure that because I guarantee you there's a difference there.

Tyler Terry (21:43):
A hundred percent. And it's like, okay, your Gen Z patient, they're going to with the patient app, great. Your boomer patient, they probably want to be called or text potentially. It's just different. It's different. And if you just have a one size fits all, you're going to miss a mark on a large segment of your patients.

Robin Ntoh (22:02):
But we don't have to complicate it either, and that's why technology is supposed to provide those solutions for you so that you're not overcomplicating it. Yes, it requires some finesse and understanding it, but there's enough out there from an educational proponent to actually help people. But yeah, you got to build it and then you got to utilize it, and then you got to let it do the job it's supposed to. You talk about retention? I go back to if people really understood what it costs them to get a new customer, would they really be so lackadaisical about losing customers?

Tyler Terry (22:37):
No, never.

Robin Ntoh (22:39):
I mean, seriously.

Tyler Terry (22:40):
Yeah. They would have something. Even in the times, we know patients are up at night scrolling through Instagram or YouTube or whatever the case may be, and making sure that you have automations in place to take care of those patients and serve those patients when the lights at your practice are off. But really the digital lights at your practice are always on. That is the key.

Robin Ntoh (23:04):
Well, competition is fierce. Our practices are struggling with it, and they're going to continue. That is not going to go away. I can tell you as we close out 2025, we are going to see in 2026, I will predict that we are going to continue to see where competition is going to continuously grow, and practices that don't start looking into these tools are going to struggle, and they're going to find that their margins drop because they're not finding any of those efficiencies. I mean, everything we've talked about today goes back to are you able to manage the bottom line better because you're driving more efficiencies into your business or thinking about how retain versus spend more to get new customers. How do I drive efficiencies into what I'm doing as I bring in new customers? And then am I leaning into the services that really are going to help me continuously focus on building out my service?

Tyler Terry (24:01):
A hundred percent. I want to mention one thing I remember between, right after COVID, we had that boom, and I remember, this is back when I was still selling TouchMD and with the TouchMD, one of the value propositions is increasing your conversion rate and people kind of, I'm going to use the word scoffed at it a little bit, like I don't need to increase my conversion rate, but we're kind of back at that point where, what is your conversion rate?

(24:27):
Could your conversion rate be better? Because we realize that the competition, like you said, is fierce and going up. So now what if we could increase your conversion rate by even just 5%, right? What's 20%, but even just 5%, if I can increase your conversion rate and what is that recipe and it's different for everybody or, so it's both. It's how do I increase my conversion rate? What are the things I could be doing? Maybe it's consistency in consults. Maybe it's better educated patients, but then there's also, how do I maximize and squeeze more juice out of every patient in encounter? How am I getting more revenue per guest?

Robin Ntoh (25:00):
That's a good point. That's great. That's a really important point. Are you measuring it to start with?

Tyler Terry (25:05):
Yeah. Yeah. Do you know your conversion rate?

Robin Ntoh (25:09):
And do you know your actual revenue per hour?

Tyler Terry (25:12):
That's a huge one.

Robin Ntoh (25:13):
Or revenue per patient. I mean, you're absolutely right. So much there, and I think that you, I think that's a great way for us to end this segment because I think that is a great way for people to walk away from this and say, I'm going to lean into that one.

Tyler Terry (25:27):
Yeah, and definitely we will be sure to give you more of this information and maybe it's for another episode.

Robin Ntoh (25:34):
Absolutely. It's always fun Tyler.

Tyler Terry (25:36):
Yes. Thank you so much, Robin. I wish we could do more of these. These are always fun when we talk, I'm like, wow, I've got another hour of conversation in me here. This is amazing.

Robin Ntoh (25:44):
Absolutely.

Tyler Terry (25:45):
Alright, well again, until next time. Thank you, Robin.

Robin Ntoh (25:50):
Thank you, Tyler

Tyler Terry (25:50):
Love doing this with you. And for those of you listening, be sure to check out the show notes to follow along on our journey here at Nextech. Be sure to sign up for EDGE. Our annual users conference.

Robin Ntoh (26:05):
We launched the website last week.

Tyler Terry (26:06):
We did just recently launched the website. And I'll tell you this, I've been part of Nextech now for three years after coming over from TouchMD and what Nextech does when they put on these EDGE user conferences is unreal. It's so much fun. Th,e culture is so much fun to be a part of the parties that we put on. We have a night where we go. In the past it's been going to Disney World where we actually rented out part of the park. Are you serious? We're big Disney fans.

Robin Ntoh (26:36):
I know

Tyler Terry (26:37):
This year, I don't know if I'm allowed to say it.

Robin Ntoh (26:39):
Yeah, it's public. Okay. This year you're going to able to actually go and experience Hogwarts for all of our Harry Potter fans. I'm a huge Harry Potter fan too.

(26:47):
Love it.

Tyler Terry (26:48):
So be sure to go check out information about EDGE and if you're not already registered, be sure to register and we hope to see you there next year.

Announcer (26:59):
Thanks for listening to Aesthetically Speaking, the podcast where beauty meets business, presented by Nextech. Follow and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. Links to the resources mentioned on this podcast or available in your show notes. For more information about Nextech visit Nextech.com or to learn more about TouchMD, go to touchmd.com. Aesthetically Speaking is a production of The Axis T-H-E-A-X-I-S.io.