Alex Conley

Neuralink clinical-trial participant and spinal-cord-injury patient who became publicly known as the second Neuralink participant and the first reported participant to use the system to control an assistive robotic arm. A former mechanic and handyman, he has described using Neuralink’s brain-computer interface to regain practical control of devices and increase independence.

Neuralink Says 20-Patient Scale Is Advancing Brain-AI Interfaces

Neuralink co-founder and president DJ Seo told Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire at AI Ascent 2026 that the company has moved from a single human implant demonstration to more than 20 patients, while still treating its current work as restoration of lost function rather than elective enhancement. Seo argued that Neuralink’s larger aim is not faster computer control but a higher-bandwidth interface between brains and AI, eventually enabling direct, multimodal transfer of concepts. The path there, he said, depends less on a single implant breakthrough than on scaling surgery, robotics, manufacturing, clinical evidence and neural-data models.

Sequoia CapitalMay 28, 202612 min read