Job Check
Ophthalmologists, Except Pediatric
Diagnose and perform surgery to treat and help prevent disorders and diseases of the eye. May also provide vision services for treatment including glasses and contacts.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Perform comprehensive examinations of the visual system to determine the nature or extent of ocular disorders.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 02Diagnose or treat injuries, disorders, or diseases of the eye and eye structures including the cornea, sclera, conjunctiva, or eyelids.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 03Provide or direct the provision of postoperative care.Mostly human for now
- 04Develop or implement plans and procedures for ophthalmologic services.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 05Prescribe or administer topical or systemic medications to treat ophthalmic conditions and to manage pain.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 06Develop treatment plans based on patients' histories and goals, the nature and severity of disorders, and treatment risks and benefits.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 07Perform ophthalmic surgeries such as cataract, glaucoma, refractive, corneal, vitro-retinal, eye muscle, or oculoplastic surgeries.Mostly human for now
- 08Educate patients about maintenance and promotion of healthy vision.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 09Document or evaluate patients' medical histories.People already use AI for this at work
- 10Perform, order, or interpret the results of diagnostic or clinical tests.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
43%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 26% 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 33% 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.
- Provide or direct the provision of postoperative care.
- Perform ophthalmic surgeries such as cataract, glaucoma, refractive, corneal, vitro-retinal, eye muscle, or oculoplastic surgeries.