AI in eye care
Artificial intelligence can help eye care providers and patients in many ways. See how it can help transform patient outcomes.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is almost everywhere today. It helps power social media feeds. It can help people write emails and answer questions.
AI is also helping medical providers, including eye care providers. That’s good news for patients. AI can help make office work faster and easier. For example, it can do some tasks so providers can spend more time with patients. It can also help find eye diseases earlier. AI can also help improve care for people who live in rural areas.
Here are some ways AI is being used in eye care today.
1. AI may help spot serious eye conditions faster
AI is very good at finding patterns, which may help spot eye problems early.
For example, people with diabetes are often checked for diabetic retinopathy. This condition happens when high blood sugar damages the tiny blood vessels in the retina. The retina is the part of the eye that acts like a camera and sends signals to the brain to see.1
During an eye exam, eye care providers usually dilate the eyes and may take special pictures. If a provider is equipped with a specific kind of diagnostic equipment, AI can quickly scan these images, compare them to past pictures, and spot small changes. This helps find diabetic retinopathy before a person notices any symptoms.2
AI can also help detect other eye diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration. It doesn’t just help with diagnosis. It can also help providers track how the disease is changing and adjust treatment if needed.
The same is true for glaucoma, another eye condition that can cause vision loss. AI can look at pictures of the optic nerve and the nerves in the retina. It can spot tiny changes in these cells, sometimes 4 to 7 years before symptoms start.3 This makes AI a helpful tool, along with regular eye exams.
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2. AI may help expand care to rural patients
AI can help address eye care provider shortages in rural areas. These towns may have fewer eye surgeons and eye care providers.5 This can make it harder for people with glaucoma, cataracts or other serious eye problems to get care.
AI may help. It can help providers check more patients more quickly. Patients may also see providers through telehealth visits, where AI can help look at eye pictures and test results.
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3. AI helps with office tasks
AI can also help eye care offices run more smoothly. For example, AI tools can help with:5
- Scheduling
- Ordering and tracking supplies
- Adding the appropriate billing codes on insurance claims
- Turning spoken notes into written medical records
For patients, this means a more organized and efficient office. When providers spend less time on paperwork, they have more time to focus on patient care.
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The future of AI in eye care looks bright
AI is already improving eye care in many ways. Researchers believe its role will keep growing. Here are some ways AI may be able to help in the eye care industry.
Surgery. Researchers are making AI tools to help eye surgeons. Some AI systems study videos of eye surgeries and patient results. These systems may learn which techniques work best.
Another tool can help surgeons see parts of the eye more clearly, which can help during glaucoma surgery.6
Tools for patients with low vision. AI may also help patients take their eye medicine. For example, there is an app that can “read” the label on eye drops. A patient points their phone at the bottle, and the app says the name out loud.6
In the future, the app may also give instructions on how and when to use the drops.
Diagnosing other diseases. The back of the eye has many nerves and tiny blood vessels. Because of this, eye care providers can sometimes see signs of diseases like high blood pressure or high cholesterol during an eye exam. AI may help find these problems faster.
For example, AI can study pictures of the retina from people with diabetes over time. Researchers think it may even predict other health problems, like heart disease or kidney disease.7
Scientists are also studying how AI can see certain protein deposits in the retina. These deposits may be linked to brain diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, ALS, and frontotemporal dementia. In the future, this research may lead to simple eye tests that find these diseases before symptoms start.8
Sources:
- Diabetic retinopathy National Eye Institute, September 11, 2025.
- How artificial intelligence is transforming eye care Macular Society, January 9, 2025.
- Artificial Intelligence in Glaucoma: Advances in Diagnosis, Progression Forecasting, and Surgical Outcome Prediction. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, May 8, 2025
- In rural America, opportunity for optometry amid shortfall of ophthalmologists American Optometric Society, January 23, 2025.
- The latest on AI and optometry American Optometric Society, April 1, 2025.
- Harnessing AI to revolutionize eye care for patients UCI Health, July 2, 2024.
- Use of artificial intelligence with retinal imaging in screening for diabetes-associated complications: systematic review eClinical Medicine, March 2025.
- Retinal Deposits of TDP-43 and Amyloid Beta and Associated Neurodegenerative Diseases are Accurately Classified using Measured Interactions with Polarized Light in Machine Learning Algorithms Alzheimer’s and Dementia, December 23, 2025.
