NEW DELHI: The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) has opened new avenues for innovation in the eyewear category, according to a top executive of Lenskart.
“I think that AI and GenAI have opened so many possibilities. One interesting thing we are now doing is remote optometry. Most people want their eyes tested, but we do not have a proportionate number of optometrists in India,” Peyush Bansal, co-founder & CEO of IPO-bound Lenskart, said on Monday, at the Qualcomm “Snapdragon for India – XR Day” event.
Lenskart, according to him, has a team of “hundreds of optometrists” based out of Kolkata that leverage AI to conduct eye examinations in the remotest parts of India at scale.
“And with AI, we are trying to make it like a co-pilot. Within some cities, and in some locations, we have self-eye tests, which means that you can talk to an AI agent and tell it your likes and dislikes about eyewear,” Bansal said.
The Faridabad-headquartered company partnered with American semiconductor company Qualcomm to power the upcoming Lenskart smart glasses with Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset solutions.
In January this year, Lenskart forayed into the smart glass category with the launch of audio-enabled ‘Phonic’ smart glasses priced at ₹4,000.
“It took 2 years of work (to launch Phonic). When we launched it, I think the beauty was that what would not have been sold in many years, got sold in a month or so. We saw that people adopted this smart glass,” Bansal said.
Smart glasses, compared to conventional spectacles, enable users to interact with a virtual environment and objects. It has applications across sectors, including retail, healthcare, education, and automobile, among others.
The adoption of these smart devices, however, has been largely limited in India due to internet connectivity issues, low level of awareness among consumers, lack of availability of prescription or power glasses, and prohibitive costs.
The top executive said that smart glass manufacturers will have to innovate in terms of materials to enhance durability, adding that the prescription-based glasses could become a reality soon.
“I think it (power glasses) will be one of the toughest problems to solve. In Southeast Asia, 70-80% of people are myopic today. Every year, myopia rates are growing. So not having prescription and sunglasses doesn’t solve our problem. A lot of things need to be done,” Bansal noted.
The chief executive said Lenskart is focused on making high-quality eyewear accessible to all, in various styles and at different price points.
“We are not in a race to win anything. I think we just want to keep investing and do the full stack so that we can make it accessible to people the best and the best possible price. The idea is that we want more and more people to wear them, not just a few,” Bansal said.
