Merge Labs Announces its Launch with the Long-Term Mission of Bridging Biological and Artificial Intelligence

Merge Labs, a Brain Computer Interface Research Lab, founded by Mikhail Shapiro, Tyson Aflalo, and Sumner Norman, complemented by technology entrepreneurs Alex Blania, Sandro Herbig, and Sam Altman in a personal capacity, has announced its launch and support and collaboration from OpenAI.

The goal centers on advancing a new class of brain-computer interfaces with high bandwidth, deep AI integration, and broad accessibility. Human experience emerges from billions of neurons acting in parallel; interfacing with them at scale could restore lost functions, improve brain states, strengthen human connection, and expand cognitive creativity alongside advanced AI.

Delivering this vision requires dramatic increases in bandwidth and brain coverage with far lower invasiveness. New technologies are being developed that use molecules instead of electrodes, rely on deep-penetrating modalities such as ultrasound, and avoid implants in brain tissue. Rapid progress in biotechnology, hardware, neuroscience, and computing now makes this trajectory increasingly feasible.

Future BCIs are envisioned as an integration of biology, devices, and AI in a safe, accessible, and practical form. Achieving this requires long-term, interdisciplinary breakthroughs and careful attention to safety, privacy, and societal benefit.

The effort focuses on molecular engineering, hardware, and large-scale neuroscience, evolving methods based on data to accelerate development. Success will be measured by products that restore abilities, advance human capability, and share progress openly to drive wider discovery.