Google's ARDA eye AI tops one million patients screened

Google's diabetic retinopathy screening model has now been run on more than a million patients across three health systems in India, Thailand and Australia. The authors, a mix of Google researchers and clinicians from the partner sites, frame the Comment published 23 September 2026 in Nature Medicine as a deployment-lessons piece more than a model paper.

"Scaling a successful deep learning tool across three highly distinct settings," the authors write, offers "cross-cutting insights that may inform the expansion of healthcare artificial intelligence globally." The three anchor sites are the Aravind Eye Care System in Madurai, Rajavithi Hospital in Bangkok, and Lions Outback Vision at the Lions Eye Institute in Western Australia. The corresponding author is Richa Tiwari of Google; co-authors include Paisan Ruamviboonsuk of Rajavithi Hospital and Angus Turner of the Lions Eye Institute.

Google has licensed the Automated Retinal Disease Assessment, or ARDA, to three commercial operators: Forus Health, AuroLab and Perceptra. The stated target is six million AI-assisted screenings across India and Thailand within ten years. The abstract publishes no per-site accuracy numbers, and does not break down how many of the million-plus screenings came from each country.