OpenAI invested $250M in the startup Merge Labs, which works on brain-computer interfaces (BCI).
OpenAI led the seed round, after which the company's valuation jumped to $850M. Merge Labs is developing non-invasive ultrasound-based technology — it reads neural signals without surgical intervention. No chip implants like Neuralink.
The bet is simple: as AI becomes more powerful, the main bottleneck becomes how we communicate with it.
OpenAI's official position: "Progress in interfaces enables progress in computing." Essentially, they're saying the bottleneck is no longer in AI itself, but in how slowly we can send information to the model and receive it back.
Currently we type with fingers or dictate by voice. For simple tasks, that's fine. But if AI capabilities grow exponentially, this interface will start feeling like trying to drink through a straw.
The project's idea is to shrink the distance between thought and execution. You think of something — and it happens. No typing, clicking, or trying to translate your idea into computer commands.
The first use case is medicine (helping people with ALS or paralysis control computers). The global goal is to make the technology available to everyone.