Job Check
Ophthalmic Medical Technicians
Assist ophthalmologists by performing ophthalmic clinical functions. May administer eye exams, administer eye medications, and instruct the patient in care and use of corrective lenses.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Take and document patients' medical histories.People already use AI for this at work
- 02Conduct tonometry or tonography tests to measure intraocular pressure.Mostly human for now
- 03Operate ophthalmic equipment, such as autorefractors, phoropters, tomographs, or retinoscopes.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 04Take anatomical or functional ocular measurements of the eye or surrounding tissue, such as axial length measurements.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 05Measure visual acuity, including near, distance, pinhole, or dynamic visual acuity, using appropriate tests.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 06Measure and record lens power, using lensometers.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 07Administer topical ophthalmic or oral medications.Mostly human for now
- 08Conduct visual field tests to measure field of vision.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 09Assist physicians in performing ophthalmic procedures, including surgery.Mostly human for now
- 10Measure corneal curvature with keratometers or ophthalmometers to aid in the diagnosis of conditions, such as astigmatism.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
Tasks from O*NET® 31.0 (US Department of Labor, CC BY 4.0, changed by us), most important first. “Already use” comes from Anthropic’s data on real work chats with Claude; “could speed up” from task ratings made with GPT-4 in 2023.
Four studies, side by side
None is a forecast of job lossToo little dataNot enough work use was seen to measure. This does not mean the job is safe from AI.Anthropic, 2026
33%of this job’s tasks an AI model could do in half the time, counting tasks that need extra tools as half (rated in 2023).Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock, 2023
Above 1% of jobsin how often and how well AI helped with this job’s work in Microsoft Copilot chats (2024 data).Microsoft Research (Tomlinson et al.), 2025
Above 81% of jobsin how much of this job’s physical work robots have been shown to do, from factories to homes (2026).Anthropic, 2026
Your human edge
The main tasks with no real AI use seen and no big speed-up expected. This is where your skill counts most today.
- Conduct tonometry or tonography tests to measure intraocular pressure.
- Administer topical ophthalmic or oral medications.
- Assist physicians in performing ophthalmic procedures, including surgery.