Google ARDA eye-screening AI crosses one million patients

Google's ARDA diabetic retinopathy screening tool has crossed a million patients across three countries, according to a Comment published 23 September 2026 in Nature Medicine. The deployment covers Aravind Eye Care System in Madurai, Rajavithi Hospital in Bangkok, and Lions Outback Vision at the Lions Eye Institute in Western Australia.

Google does not operate the screenings. It licenses the Automated Retinal Disease Assessment to three commercial partners, Forus Health, AuroLab and Perceptra, which run the service at no cost to patients. The company has previously set a target of six million AI-supported screenings across India and Thailand within ten years, up from more than 600,000 globally as of October 2024.

The authors, led by Richa Tiwari of Google and including Paisan Ruamviboonsuk at Rajavithi Hospital and Angus Turner at the Lions Eye Institute, pitch the write-up as portable operational lessons: 'scaling a successful deep learning tool across three highly distinct settings...offers cross-cutting insights that may inform the expansion of healthcare artificial intelligence globally.'

The Comment is paywalled, and the public abstract publishes no per-country patient breakdown and no deployed-site accuracy numbers. Ruamviboonsuk discloses consulting relationships with Roche, Biocon Biologics, Abbott, 4DMT and Bayer.