Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a major complication of diabetes mellitus and is a leading cause of vision loss globally. A prompt and accurate diagnosis is crucial for ensuring favorable visual outcomes, highlighting the need for increased access to medical care. The recent remarkable advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have raised high expectations for its role in disease diagnosis and prognosis prediction across various medical fields. In addition to achieving high precision comparable to that of ophthalmologists, AI-based diagnosis of DR has the potential to improve medical accessibility, especially through telemedicine. In this review paper, we aim to examine the current role of AI in the diagnosis of DR and explore future directions.