With an eye to AI and autonomous diagnosis

In this issue of npj Digital Medicine , Abramoff and colleagues report the findings from a prospective study that evaluates the performance of a diabetic retinopathy diagnostic system (IDx-DR) in a primary care setting. 1 This represents an important clinical milestone as, in April 2018, these results were used to form the basis for FDA approval of the system, thus becoming the first fully autonomous AI-based system approved for marketing in the USA. 2 Given the potentially transformative potential of AI for healthcare (in particular a technique referred to as “deep learning”)—but also its associated hype—this lays an important foundation for future translation of such technologies to routine clinical practice.