Researchers have developed an AI-powered framework for assessing surgical skills in cataract surgery. The framework uses computer vision and signal-processing techniques to evaluate videos of surgeries and provide objective performance indicators. This approach aims to address the shortage of skilled surgeons by automating skill assessment, which can be time-consuming and subjective. The study presents a dataset of 2,000 cataract surgery videos and demonstrates that the automatically computed metrics correlate strongly with expert-based evaluations, achieving up to 87% accuracy. --- Why it matters: This matters because it could help address the shortage of skilled surgeons by providing an objective and efficient way to assess surgical skills. This can be particularly useful for training new surgeons and evaluating their progress. Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.17522