Here’s a polished English translation of the Chinese title: **From AI to “Eye Age” Management: EssilorLuxottica Defines New Eyecare Trends at Vision China**

Reframing Vision, Empowering People

TIANJINJune 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — During the Vision China 2026 International Conference on Vision Health and Innovation Development, EssilorLuxottica, a global leader in vision care, eyewear, and medical technology, participated under the theme “Reframing Vision, Empowering People.” The company showcased its latest innovations and ecosystem collaboration practices across areas such as comprehensive Primary Eye Care systems, AI-driven digital innovation, adult vision health and eye age management, and myopia management for children and adolescents, continuously driving China’s eye health industry toward greater precision, digitalization, and systematization.

Lin Guoliang, President of Professional Vision Health at EssilorLuxottica Greater China, stated: “China’s ’15th Five-Year Plan’ clearly emphasizes implementing a health-first development strategy, shifting the focus from disease treatment to health promotion. This provides encouragement and guidance for us to increase investment in lifelong eye health, advocate for early intervention, and move prevention efforts forward. We will deepen innovation based on evidence-based medicine and continue to collaborate with industry experts, medical institutions, and partners to make more professional and efficient eye health services accessible to more people, contributing to the Healthy China initiative.”

Driving Eye Health Services Further “Downward”

This year’s government work report once again emphasizes enhancing primary-level diagnosis and treatment capabilities and advancing the tiered diagnosis and treatment system. In the field of eye health, the uneven distribution of high-quality resources and insufficient service capacity at the grassroots level remain critical challenges that urgently need to be addressed.

During Vision China, EssilorLuxottica, together with domestic optometry experts, launched the China Comprehensive Primary Eye Care Development Initiative. Meanwhile, the Asian Optometric Management Association (AOMA) initiated the drafting of the first “International Expert Consensus on Comprehensive Primary Eye Care,” aiming to help establish an efficient eye health service system.

As the core focus of this initiative and the international expert consensus, Comprehensive Primary Eye Care is a systematic management model that connects the public’s daily eye health needs with professional eye health services, emphasizing improved accessibility and continuity of services in community and primary-level settings. The newly launched international expert consensus will address key topics such as the core concepts of Comprehensive Primary Eye Care, stratified management pathways, referral coordination mechanisms, and professional capacity building, forming an international practice framework to provide professional references for China’s exploration of more standardized and sustainable comprehensive eye health management models.

At the same time, AI technology is becoming a significant force driving industry upgrades and the popularization of optometry. During Vision China, the group officially launched China’s first AI-powered optometry assistant, developed in collaboration with Tencent Health.

Built on EssilorLuxottica’s deep professional optometry expertise and Tencent Health’s medical large language model, the AI assistant has been trained on over 600 million tokens of ophthalmology knowledge, deeply learning from more than 200 industry authoritative expert consensuses, clinical guidelines, and industry standards. Its response detail is over 30% higher than general models. The Eye Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University participated deeply in the development of evaluation standards and third-party testing. Results show that the AI assistant can already meet most daily usage needs of ophthalmologists, optometrists, eyewear fitters, and consumers. Users can access services such as optometry consultations and refraction report interpretations conveniently via a mobile mini-program. Currently, the model covers over 70 application scenarios, including children’s myopia prevention and control, adult spectacle fitting, and presbyopia management, further enhancing the accessibility and convenience of professional eye health services.

Focusing on “Eye Age” Management, Reshaping Adult Vision Health Awareness

In an era where prolonged screen time and intense near-vision tasks have become the norm, the phenomenon of “eyes aging before the person” is troubling an increasing number of consumers.

Based on long-term clinical practice and consumer insights, EssilorLuxottica has introduced the concept of “Eye Age,” aiming to help consumers better understand the correlation between accommodative decline and presbyopia (near vision fatigue), and to shift adult vision health management from “passive correction” to “active intervention.”

During Vision China, the group invited multiple industry experts to engage in in-depth discussions on how to promote the scientific and standardized development of adult presbyopia management. The discussions focused on four main areas: conducting research on presbyopia characteristics and accommodative curves in the Chinese population; developing group standards for the construction and evaluation of presbyopia diagnosis and treatment centers and interpreting dispensing decision trees; studying the adaptability and satisfaction of Chinese populations with progressive lenses; and developing professional training and digital screening tools for frontline practitioners, contributing to the construction of a more systematic adult presbyopia management system.

To comprehensively demonstrate the service loop of “Eye Age” management, the group set up an independent “Eye Age” themed booth at the event, primarily introducing the full-process pathway of “Eye Age Management” to store dispensing staff. This systematically covers key processes such as consumer needs identification, preliminary screening, professional testing, solution recommendation, customized spectacle fitting, and follow-up maintenance, further driving the industry’s upgrade from simple dispensing to a systematic and standardized adult vision health management model.

Additionally, the group organized 150 outstanding fitters from medical and retail sectors to visit and experience the booth, completing the first certification training for the “Gold Medal Progressive Dispensing Master” program. This program aims to empower frontline practitioners, with plans to train over 500 optometrists within three years, promoting the deep popularization and practice of the “Eye Age” concept within the industry.

Evidence-Based Innovation Drives Continued Leadership in Myopia Management

Currently, the issue of myopia among children and adolescents remains severe. According to data released by the National Health Commission, the age of high myopia onset has shifted from 8-12 years old to 6-10 years old in recent years, showing a trend of earlier onset and faster progression. At the same time, significant differences exist among children and adolescents in terms of developmental stages, visual habits, and myopia progression risks, meaning that myopia management requires more systematic, refined, stratified classification, and personalized solutions.

Facing this challenge, EssilorLuxottica continues to invest in professional scientific research, exploring innovative technologies for myopia management, and released several long-term research findings based on evidence-based medicine during Vision China.

The group’s flagship myopia management brand, Stellest^®, continues to uphold its “long-termism” approach, announcing the results of its 7-year follow-up study. The study shows that the lens slowed myopia progression by an average of 2.30D*^[1] over 7 years. Compared with extrapolated data from a 2-year single-vision control group, the Essilor^® Stellest^® lens slowed axial elongation by an average of 0.92mm*^[1]. Additionally, a comparative study of astigmatism changes over 24 months in U.S. children wearing Stellest^® lenses versus single-vision lenses demonstrated that the astigmatism progression with Essilor^® Stellest^® lenses was comparable to that of single-vision lenses, and no effect on the rate of astigmatism change was observed^[2].

Another popular emerging brand, KODAK Precision Plus, featuring DOT^® (Diffusion Optics Technology™), released its 24-month data from a Chinese clinical study at Vision China. In the study group of Chinese children aged 6 to 13 years, wearing DOT^® lenses for two years resulted in an average myopia progression delay of 0.78D and an average axial elongation delay of 0.40mm compared to the control group^[3]. The 0.78D myopia delay represents a myopia progression inhibition rate of 67%, and the 0.40mm axial elongation difference corresponds to an axial elongation inhibition rate of 61.5%^[3].

*This trial was initially a prospective, randomized, double-blind, two-year clinical trial on myopia control initiated by the Eye Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University in 2018. The trial compared a study group of 54 children wearing Stellest^® lenses with a control group of 50 children wearing single-vision lenses. The enrollment age was 8 to 13 years. Other enrollment conditions such as SER (spherical equivalent refraction), astigmatism, and anisometropia, along with more information, can be found in the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, registration number ChiCTR1800017683. The trial was subsequently extended to seven years. For ethical considerations, from the third year onward, simulated data was used to replace the single-vision lens control group for comparison with the study group. The simulated SER and AL (axial length) data were extrapolated based on the data from the control group wearing single-vision Stellest^® lenses during the initial two years, using a method where SER change decreased by 9.7% annually and AL change decreased by 15% annually (the 9.7% and 15% extrapolation methods refer to Smotherman C, et al. IOVS2023;64:ARVO E-Abstract 811 and Shamp W, et al. IOVS 2022;63:ARVO E-Abstract A0111).