Fluent

Fluent is a University of Melbourne spinout building InScribe, a brain-computer interface that decodes intended speech directly from the brain and translates it into text or synthesised speech in real time. Where most BCI companies place electrodes inside the skull, InScribe sits under the scalp but outside it, inserted in a reversible 30-minute outpatient procedure that follows a Class II regulatory pathway rather than a decade-long one. It reads the ventral sensorimotor cortex, the region that orchestrates the muscles used in speech, so a user has to actively intend to speak for the device to register anything and their internal monologue stays their own. The first focus is restoring speech to people with severe neurological impairments, with a longer-term goal of a frictionless interface between people and AI.