Light Code, Not Heavy Glass: OptikosPrime and Eyewa Bring AI Vision Care to Phones

Danish deep-tech company OptikosPrime has entered a strategic partnership with Eyewa, the Middle East's leading omnichannel eyewear retailer, to bring smartphone-based vision testing to shoppers across the Gulf. The deal moves OptikosPrime's AI refraction engine, Argus, from field validation into a large commercial rollout.

From the phoropter to the phone

An eyewear prescription is one of the last consumer rituals still tied to specialised equipment. Buying online runs into the same wall: more than 80% of consumers still buy glasses in store, and of those who start online, roughly half finish the purchase in a physical shop. The missing piece is simple — most shoppers do not know their prescription.

OptikosPrime spent five years building a neural architecture that extracts a full prescription from an ordinary smartphone photo. Argus is meant to cut reliance on stationary optical rigs that cost around $20,000, turning a mobile camera into a diagnostic device.

Trials and clinical validation

The accuracy claims rest on trials with humanitarian NGO Sightsavers, in which the system assessed more than 14,000 real-world patients across Africa and South Asia. Against high-end autorefractors, Argus recorded a mean absolute error below 0.51 diopters — a result the company says matches standard clinical accuracy. The algorithms compensate in real time for spherical aberrations, device differences and shaky handheld captures, and independent validation by the Karolinska Institutet confirmed the performance held up.

Inside the retail rollout

Eyewa combines an extensive store network across the Gulf Cooperation Council with a digital platform. It will weave Argus into its omnichannel roadmap, so customers can take a vision assessment on their phone as an entry point, both online and in store.

"Our customers want speed, simplicity, and confidence when choosing eyewear, but not knowing their prescription has always been the single biggest hurdle," said François-Xavier Jombart, Chief Optical Officer at Eyewa. "Integrating OptikosPrime's clinical-grade AI directly into our retail ecosystem removes that roadblock entirely."

Ståle Fredlund Husby, co-founder and COO of OptikosPrime, called the partnership "exactly the future we have been building towards" and said phone-based vision assessment will become a natural part of the customer journey.

Why it matters

The global eyewear market is estimated at $190 billion, where abandoned carts remain a persistent cost. On the access side, the World Health Organization reports at least 2.2 billion people with vision impairment, and more than a billion of those cases go uncorrected for lack of infrastructure and specialists.