<p><strong>SAN FRANCISCO</strong> &#8212; <a title="Sabi" href="https://www.sabi.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Sabi</a> has raised a $50 million seed round, led by Khosla Ventures, to develop a brain-AI interface designed for everyday wear. Accel, Initialized Capital, former OpenAI Chief Product Officer Kevin Weil, DST Global, Collaborative Fund and Ascend also participated.</p>
<p>Sabi’s first product looks like an ordinary baseball cap. Sensors hidden inside it read neural signals through hair without gel, surgery or direct contact with the scalp. Sabi is developing the cap to translate imagined speech and intent into commands for AI.</p>
<p>Brain-computer interfaces have largely been designed for clinical settings and cursor control. Sabi is pursuing a different use: giving people a faster, private way to communicate with AI without typing or speaking.</p>
<p>AI systems can now write, research and take action, but people still direct them through keyboards, touchscreens and voice commands. Implantable interfaces can capture detailed neural activity, but surgery prevents them from becoming an everyday input method. Sabi is developing a non-invasive alternative that can be worn outside the laboratory.</p>
<p>Each cap contains sensors measuring between one and five millimeters, built around Sabi’s custom EEG chip. The sensors are designed to capture signals through hair across a gap of up to five millimeters. In internal benchmarks, the chip was more than 50 times as power-efficient as the Texas Instruments ADS1299, a widely used EEG analog front end. That efficiency allows the electronics to fit inside ordinary headwear while limiting heat and electrical noise.</p>
<p>The neural signals are processed by Sabi’s Brain Foundation Model. The model has been trained on more than 100,000 hours of labeled, non-invasive recordings collected while participants imagined words and performed specific mental tasks. This is the largest disclosed dataset of its kind.</p>
<p>Sabi is developing three primary forms of interaction:</p>
<ul>
<li>Imagined speech to text. Words a user intentionally imagines can appear on a connected screen without being spoken or typed.</li>
<li>Thought to prompt. A trained mental command can become an instruction for an AI assistant, such as asking it to draft a message or retrieve information.</li>
<li>Intent prediction. The system can anticipate likely keystrokes or on-screen actions and present them for the user to complete or confirm.</li>
</ul>
<p>The cap connects to a phone or computer wirelessly, much like a pair of earbuds. Sabi plans to demonstrate early versions of these interactions at CES 2027 in Las Vegas.</p>
<p>Neural data is encrypted beginning at the sensor. Sabi’s system is designed to run inference while that data remains encrypted, preventing servers from receiving a user’s unencrypted neural signals. The company is also building user controls around when the cap records, which applications may receive commands and which actions require confirmation.</p>
<p>Sabi was co-founded by CEO Rahul Chhabra and CTO Atmadeep Banerjee. Banerjee is co-first author of MindEye, the NeurIPS 2023 paper that advanced the decoding of viewed images from non-invasive brain recordings. The company’s team includes hardware, machine-learning and design leaders from Kernel, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Adobe and Nike, alongside neuroscientists from Stanford.</p>
<p>“AI can write, reason and act, yet we still communicate with it by tapping on keyboards and screens,” said Chhabra. “We are building a faster interface that does not require surgery or a laboratory. The goal is a cap people can wear in ordinary life and use when they intentionally want to communicate with AI.”“You cannot perform a billion brain surgeries to replace a billion keyboards,” said Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures. “Every computing era is defined by its interface. Sabi is building one designed for the age of AI.”</p>
<p>Khosla and his family became the new majority owner of the Seattle Seahawks earlier this year.</p>
<p>Sabi will use the funding to expand its neural dataset, complete development of its custom chip, manufacture early devices and grow its neuroscience, hardware and machine-learning teams. The company is also preparing units for members of its early-access waitlist.</p>

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