In focus: Hey, Siri! What will AI do to optometry?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) recently attracted the attention of Prime Minister Teresa May during a roundtable on how the technology would interact with healthcare in the near future. The PM’s Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, was also in attendance at the event to develop a proposed AI collaboration between the UK and India.

Showing its Pegasus-disc clinical decision-making assistant at the event was UK-based Visulytix. The company’s CEO Jay Lakhani took time to demonstrate to the two leaders how the system worked and to explain the benefits of AI in health care.

But is the technology accessible to optometrists on the high street or it the reserve of multiples with access to ‘big data’ and hospital screening programmes? And does the notion of AI putting people out of the job have any resonance?