Bridge Neurotech wants to build a brain-computer interface you wear, not one a surgeon implants.
The startup launched this week with a plan to build a wearable brain-computer interface powered by ultrasound rather than implanted electrodes. That puts it in direct competition with Merge Labs, Sam Altman's neurotech startup. Bridge has not shipped a product yet. The company is still in the build phase, betting that ultrasound can read and influence brain activity well enough to matter without opening anyone's skull.
That bet matters because the biggest barrier to brain-computer interfaces going mainstream has never been the software. It is the hardware risk. Neuralink proved implants can work, but surgery keeps that market confined to people with serious medical need. If ultrasound can get even a fraction of that signal quality from outside the skull, it opens the door to healthy users, a market far bigger than implant patients alone.
The catch: ultrasound has long been the blunter tool for reading brain signals, and noninvasive usually means lower resolution. Bridge is racing against rivals that already have real hardware in real heads.