By Staff Report Friday, February 27th, 2026

By Paula Aven Gladych

Special to the Business Times

Santa Barbara-based Cognixion is making a name for itself in the AI-powered accessible communication technology space with Axon-R, a headset that combines augmented reality goggles with EEG brain-sensing capability and artificial intelligence that can aid people with neurological disorders that impact speech and communication. It is being sold to universities and hospitals that conduct clinical research. 

Most people can imagine a future where they can do things just by thinking about it, but when creating a business around that premise, Andreas Forsland, Cognixion’s founder and CEO, said that “we wanted to make sure the business was addressing the highest needs first and then, as the market becomes more mature with its understanding and acceptance of using your brain with applications, the market will naturally start to expand.”

Cognixion’s first market for the Axon-R is individuals experiencing paralysis of some kind, such as those with ALS, traumatic brain injuries, stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease and even autism, making it difficult to use their arms, hands or voice. 

Dozens of universities and health systems are exploring a wide variety of neurological disorders with it and building applications for new types of diagnostics, therapies and telehealth uses. 

“In the U.S. alone, there are about 24 million people who have these kinds of conditions,” Forsland said.

Cognixion’s technology can help those with the most severe symptoms, which equate to about 3.5 million individuals.

The company is also in the midst of a clinical trial looking at how combinations of brain signals, eye tracking and AI can help individuals with ALS and other conditions that impact speech. 

The trial integrates the Axon-R with the Apple Vision Pro, allowing clinicians and patients to give input on how the system works so that the company can create a communication pathway that is intuitive, adaptable and meets real-world needs. 

The goal is to help these individuals with full paralysis to communicate at conversational speed, eliminating their dependency on a human communication partner and enabling them to freely communicate with whom they want to communicate, Forsland said. 

Cognixion is hoping to get FDA approval later this year. Once that approval happens, the company will be able to market and sell the product to individuals with disabilities in 2027.

The ALS Association, a large nonprofit that raises money to find a cure for ALS and other neurodegenerative conditions, has invested in Cognixion, which is “a resounding endorsement of how we are making this technology available,” Forsland said. “As a result of that investment, they will be helping us accelerate adoption of our technology throughout the ALS community throughout the U.S.”

ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that takes away patients’ ability to walk, move, talk and breathe. Most patients diagnosed with ALS have three to five years to live after their diagnosis. 

The ALS Association funds global research into drugs, therapies and assistive technologies that can assist ALS patients, and its investment in Cognixion is just one of the ten technologies it is investing in currently, according to Dr. Kuldip Dave, senior vice president of research at The ALS Association in Arlington, Virginia.

“Really, what stands out to us is that their technology allows for a nonsurgical way to allow people to communicate and that is a really advantageous and valuable technology,” Dave said. 

Cognixion is recruiting ALS patients for a trial of its Axon-R to look at the safety, tolerability and feasibility of the project. 

“Are people with ALS able to wear the helmet? How are they able to capture data? Is the data being captured? Can AI take the data and output speech and communication in a manner that makes sense?” he said.

What makes the Axon-R special is that it can adapt to every individual’s communication and speech patterns. It isn’t a one-size-fits-all technology.

“If we can have technology that can learn in an independent way and cater to individual symptoms and strengths, it can be game-changing down the line,” Dave said. 

“It doesn’t mean that we stop looking for treatments and cures. We still need that to stop and slow down the disease, but at least it allows people with ALS to communicate with the outside world and family and caregivers in the way they want.”

Once that trial is completed, the next step would be a larger trial to gain FDA clearance for this type of technology, he said. 

The company’s roots in Santa Barbara run deep, said Forsland, and he is hopeful that individuals in the city and surrounding communites that have ALS will receive great benefit from the Axon-R. 

The sensors measure activity in the brain, leaving it open to many applications that could develop high-quality brain data, diagnostics for a variety of things, including concussions, attention span, consciousness, mind wandering, aging, accelerated brain aging, neurodegeneration and ophthalmology for understanding what is happening behind the retina, he added.

Forsland hopes that someday, people using Cognixion technology will be able to visit an app store to purchase clinically validated apps made by some of the world’s best health systems and universities. 

“It is something we are hoping to be a catalyst for,” Forsland said.

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