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News|Articles|July 28, 2026

Beyond diagnostics: AI’s next frontier in ophthalmology

Author(s)Sujay Jadhav

Physician AI use has more than doubled since 2023—but the next leap in ophthalmology won't come from smarter diagnostic algorithms alone.

Discussions at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) 2026 Annual Meeting highlighted an important reality: artificial intelligence (AI) is already reshaping ophthalmology, but probably not in the way most people expected. Recent American Medical Association research found that physician use of AI tools more than doubled between 2023 and 2026, with 81% of physicians reporting they now use AI professionally, compared with 38% in 2023—underscoring how quickly these technologies are moving from experimentation to implementation. The survey also found that the average number of AI use cases per physician increased from 1.1 in 2023 to 2.3 in 2026.