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Eyewear is evolving from a corrective device into a platform for technology, health, and human augmentation. From AI-enabled glasses to breakthroughs in early disease detection, a new generation of innovations is redefining what it means to see. EssilorLuxottica leaders Paul du Saillant and Federico Buffa discuss the convergence of vision care, digital experiences, and preventive health—and why eyeglasses may become one of the most important interfaces of the AI era.
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00:00Good afternoon. Fede, very happy to be on stage with you for this VivaTech.
00:08Nice to be here with you Paul too. So we have a very disruptive idea to share
00:14with you which is quite simple. We are going to share in 10 minutes a
00:20double revolution. One which is this idea that the eye is the window to the
00:28outside and that this object is going through a full disruption becoming a
00:36connected device. That is the idea of the windows to the outside but at the same
00:43time our eyes are the window to the inside. Not only to give us a good vision
00:51and clear vision but also because and we will drill a little bit into that because
00:57they are a proxy of your health. So last year I was on stage with Maurice Davy and
01:04we were only showcasing the new wearable and also the the audio frames and we we
01:12are already embarking you embarking VivaTech on this disruption. So Fede what has
01:21happened in a year in the space of AI glasses. So Paul I'm not Maurice but I'm
01:27happy to be here with you and with all of you. Indeed I would like to define it a
01:33huge success because since we were here 12 months ago we have been capable to I
01:39would say sell out and spread out in the world more than 7 million units of our AI
01:44glasses. And the reason why if I have to look behind us is not because we got a
01:50more impressive or impressive than ever technology coming on but because in these
01:57cases we'll be capable to generally and smoothly address a useful device. A useful
02:04device what doesn't mean means that all the users they can have in their life, their
02:09daily life advantage of doing something like instant capturing a moment without
02:16taking out from your pocket a phone or answering to a phone call listening music
02:23or start to chat in a smooth and normal human way with your AI assistant without
02:30taking out the phone and prompting and waiting for an answer. So somehow getting
02:35the possibility to do things in a smooth manner. But what makes me crazy Paul is
02:42that every new user every newcomers of these seven million of active user they
02:49are finding by themselves their own use cases in their daily life. So do you know
02:54for example that low vision impaired or blind people today can be navigated by our
03:03AI glasses in their grocery journey for shopping or in the morning where they
03:09have to take the clothes to wear or combining the color makeup with the the
03:14necklace that they are wearing because they the AI glasses can see what they have
03:21to see and can support them in their decision complementing and giving them some
03:27superpower versus the condition or I give you another example for example it's not an
03:32example because could be real if we do not remind where we parked the car this
03:37morning you can ask to our high glasses and for sure they can answer to you with
03:43the parking lot or they can navigate you back at your car directly. So all simple
03:49useful example that they are bringing these devices in a diffusion that is inside the
03:58daily life. So what I can foreseen is that the technology will go over we continue but not
04:06giving us more device to wear on it but somehow we are aiming that the technology will disappear
04:12in in our life itself. So we'll be embedded in a smooth manner for giving us the context around us
04:21helping us helping us to connect with the people for sure they will get smarter and smarter every day
04:27more more contextualized more more personal I would say more human but without substituting the human but
04:36empowering the human capability is a way on which we can imagine that we are always present but always
04:45connected the technology is there when we need and it will disappear when we don't need it. What do you
04:52think? I think it's a incredible revolution that we are just starting to scratch the surface of for like you
05:01said personal usage professional usage education usage and more and more also through biosensor this device will
05:11become also a health platform with connectivity. So that is the first part windows to the outside and we are
05:22at the
05:22beginning of a major journey where we are trying with our partner Meta with also some new partnership with
05:29applied material on the technology part to really deepen all what we are doing. And I don't know if you
05:35noticed but yesterday we just released a big news that our cooperation our partnership with the applied
05:44material that is the leader in material technology when we are talking about every use cases in the chipset
05:52or display we strongly believe that together we can join the forces and we can disrupt also the lens play
05:59so
05:59the displaying lenses to give these augmented reality accessible. So that was the first part the first five
06:07minutes. The next part is this really wonderful idea that the eye is the windows to the inside so we
06:17will know of
06:18course with our pair of eyes that you want to have a good eye health and that you need to
06:24have good
06:25correction protection, protection, management of myopia, just things that are common to all of us and that has
06:33been very well known. But actually the eye which for me is a everyday discovery about the incredible
06:46sophistication of this organ is that the eye health is the first thing that you want to be sure that
06:54there is a good
06:54eye health and the technology that allows to have a very good diagnostic of the eye condition are progressing
07:04enormously through imaging technology, digital, wide field, photography, all kind of technology around the
07:15imaging and the photography. So those technology and Fede you will help us understand better what I'm talking about
07:22allows you to do two things. To have a very early diagnostic of the eye health of the person, the
07:31eye health, I insist on this
07:33nuance, but also I can look at the retina and have a proxy of the health of the person, of
07:45the full body health on
07:47cardiovascular aspect, neurological aspect, cognitive aspect, functional aspect. So I have, with a non-intrusive
07:59technology, the ability to go early in diagnostic of very dramatic pathologies like glaucoma, EMD and so on, but not
08:13being
08:15invasive. This is really important. So this is the only part of the body where I can look, observe, analyze,
08:24and get a proxy.
08:26It takes very advanced technology to do that, but that are becoming widely available. So maybe you help us, Fede,
08:35to understand what is behind this idea of observing the anterior segment,
08:41the front segment of the eye, the posterior segment, and either looking at eye health or body health.
08:51Yes, Paul. So let me say that, fortunately, the technology here is running so fast that can give a big
08:58help in doing this kind of analysis.
09:00Let's start to talk about the quality of the imaging and definition. Today, an OCT, so an optical coherence tomography,
09:11today, with the last device that we just released with Heidelberg, we can reach 2 micron of definition in the
09:20retina image.
09:22Okay, so we can see all the data at the level of precision of 2 micron. That is like slicing
09:30that micron by micron, cell by cell, at the certain point to define exactly the map of everything that is
09:40in this portion and in this large field of the retina scan.
09:46If you do that, and those are some images that we define which kind of situation, then you combine the
09:55power of AI, okay, that they can look at the teeny changes, okay, that you can have in between one
10:02picture that you take it and one, six months later, the same kind of picture.
10:08You can really, let me say, create a pattern that you can imagine how these kind of things can intercept
10:16such an early stage of any biomarker that any human eye can do it, but you can gain ears to
10:26detect which can be an early signal of such kind of diseases.
10:30Cardiovascular diseases, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, that they are really something on which we are talking about 20
10:43years in front of any external signal.
10:47So, really, the neuroscience researcher today, they are giving us a lot of response due to this technology that can
10:56enable us to get at the level.
10:58It's similar to what happened with the FEM in the automotive or in the aviation, in the aerospace, to be
11:06predictive.
11:07So, to predict the kind of damage and so activate the predictive maintenance.
11:13So, also, in front of the eye, we can move from a reactive medicine to a preventive medicine.
11:21And that is a revolution on two aspects.
11:26Paul, imagine what this can mean for the healthcare infrastructure.
11:32They are, for sure, under pressure.
11:34They are under, let me say, a moment on which the triage, the definition of the fact they are always
11:43under pressure.
11:44This system could change their life.
11:47You can have an early triage already done by the technology and referring to the right pathology already when you
11:55know that it's coming.
11:55And second is for the million of people, they can take advantage of these things to manage their well-being
12:05in a predictive system of maintenance.
12:09And this could be really a win-win in between the quality of our life, the infrastructure of healthcare management,
12:18and the insurance, and everything that you can imagine that could be.
12:23Fascinating, fascinating, really important.
12:25I hope we can convey to you how big this is a transformation of the entire ecosystem around vision, eye
12:34health, and health.
12:36It's really an extremely strong revolution going from only curative, like you said, to preventive and curative.
12:44Now, we would not be credible here on stage if we don't say a little word on what is also
12:53powering all of that.
12:54So, it's quite interesting because everybody is talking about AI.
12:58How does AI come into what we just said?
13:01And to try to keep things super simple, you have in the first part of our little worlds with you,
13:10the connected eyewear is being empowered, is being enabled, emulated by LLMs, of course, but multimodal AI LLMs.
13:22And that's quite important because they have to be able to manage, at the same time, photography, video, sound, speeches,
13:29and interact with the different sensors that are in the frame.
13:34Because I didn't say it in the beginning, but the only object that we wear that is on our body
13:42that is close to three cents is a pair of eyeglasses, close to the speech, the hearing, and the sight,
13:50of course.
13:50And by being so close to those three cents, it has unique power.
13:57So, we have AI LLMs, we use a lot, the one of meta, that are enabling our eyeglasses.
14:05But when you are in the healthcare domain that was just described by Federico, you have other kinds of algorithms
14:15that are going to take those scans of the retina, those photos, and be able to do interpretation, preliminary diagnostic
14:25of your retina status, and share it with the eye doctors, with a first analysis.
14:32So, this is really very clear application usage that around those two domains, window to the inside, window to the
14:41inside, that are being leveraged.
14:43Now, to wrap it up, Fede, what is your takeaway of what we just shared in 10 minutes?
14:51Okay, the takeaway is that the eyewear, per se, is changing the mission.
14:56Like our company changing the mission, there are no more devices to see more or see better or appear better.
15:02Okay, they are really helping us to understand the contents, the context around us, and also to understand what is
15:12happening inside us.
15:14So, it's a gateway for powering the eye to understand what is outside and what is inside us.
15:24So, it's really becoming a powerful tool for empowering the human.
15:29Yeah.
15:30So, to conclude, you see, and we have not been talking at all about Estil or Exotica, but we have
15:36created this company seven years ago.
15:39Only, it's a young company, but with very long history in France and Italy.
15:44And we have really positioned the company into this space of transforming this object that, of course, is the core
15:53of our business into a full new ecosystem for the consumer, for the patient, for the professional application.
16:05And at the same time, continuing our vision care, iHealth, healthcare journey.
16:11And we are really passionate.
16:13We have 210,000 colleagues that are embarked on this adventure.
16:18Thanks a lot for listening to our little sharing of the window to the outside and to the inside.
16:28Thank you, Paul.
16:29Thank you, everybody.
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