The key facts

  • A VOICE trial participant spoke on the phone with his wife using speech synthesized from neural signals
  • The system feeds synthesized speech directly into the iPhone's microphone audio stream, without a separate app
  • New features include controlling Grok with the mental phrase “Salom, Neuralink” and automatic detection of speech attempts

A phone call powered by thought

Neuralink has unveiled new capabilities of its technology designed for people with severe speech impairments, Kun.uz reports. The demonstration involved one of the volunteers in the VOICE clinical trial, which aims to restore the ability to communicate to people who have lost the capacity to speak.

How it works

At its core is an experimental brain–computer interface (BCI): it converts neural signals associated with a person's intention to speak words into text or into a voice synthesized by the device. One of the demonstrated features is the direct transmission of such speech into a phone call on an iPhone: instead of a separate communication app, the system routes the artificially generated speech into the microphone's audio stream, and the person on the other end hears that voice. During the test, a participant spoke with his wife this way; the company noted that their relationship once began precisely with phone calls, so the demonstration held special meaning for the couple.

Controlling Grok and automatic speech recognition

The second new feature is controlling the AI agent Grok with mental commands: the user mentally says the phrase “Salom, Neuralink,” then formulates a task, after which the agent carries it out on the computer autonomously. Neuralink calls this integration one of the first demonstrations of how brain–computer interfaces can interact with artificial intelligence systems. In addition, the company has developed a system that automatically determines from neural signals when the participant is trying to speak: previously, users had to press a button to start and stop the recording of neural activity; now the process starts and stops without manual control.