This isn’t about fear. It’s about clarity. In earlier articles in this series, we talked about ways to define ourselves and to define the ecosystem. If we don’t do that as eye care professionals, someone else will do it for us.
The next 18–24 months will define the trajectory of smart glasses and vision care.
We won’t all be in the same rooms. We won’t all make the same decisions. But we share responsibility for the ecosystem we create.
Here’s the future I want you to imagine:
You walk into a big-box electronics store.
You try on smart glasses.
You get an “eye exam.”
A college student—not an eye care provider—explains glaucoma using prompts from an internal system.
That future is plausible.
And it’s not one I believe serves patients, providers or society.
The alternative future is one where
- Eye care providers remain the center of care,
- Technology augments — not replaces — expertise, and
- Data flows back to clinicians in usable, ethical ways.
This is a pivotal moment.
Just as AI competitors collaborated before competing, we may need to work together now to shape standards, services and safeguards.
Smart glasses will become a computing platform.
Your children—or grandchildren—will ask for them the way previous generations asked for phones.
The question isn’t whether this will happen.
The question is whether we define the market—or allow it to define us.
That requires a shift: from accidental technologists to intentional architects of the future.
I’m optimistic.
We entered this field because we care—about people, about vision and about how humans experience the world.
If we act together, the future isn’t just bright.
We’ll help shape how the world sees it.
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