Brad Smith, an American man living in Arizona, has regained the ability to control a motorized webcam using a brain implant developed by the company Neuralink. This has allowed him to follow conversations and interact with his family more naturally. Smith has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a progressive neurological disease that affects muscle control and eventually leads to paralysis. He has lived with ALS since 2018 and now relies on a machine to breathe and has lost the ability to speak. On November 8, 2024, he became the third human to receive Neuralink’s brain implant and the first person with ALS to do so. The implant translates Smith’s movement intentions into cursor movements on his MacBook and allows him to control an Insta360 Link 2, a 4K webcam mounted on a motorized stand. The system was described in an eight-minute documentary uploaded by Insta360 on November 5, 2025. Before the implant, Smith communicated through eye tracking, which required dim lighting and limited his ability to go outside or use bright lights at home. According to Insta360, the motorized mount moves at 5 degrees per second, which is sufficient for meetings but not as fast as human eye movements. Making the motor stronger would have required a larger and heavier housing, which would have been too bulky for Smith. Instead, engineers adjusted the control logic so the camera moves a greater distance with the same number of signals. Smith also has a custom-designed control interface tailored to his specific needs. Insta360 discovered the story in May 2025 through a post on the Tesla Owners Silicon Valley X account and then contacted Smith’s family. As of late January 2026, Neuralink reported 21 participants in its clinical trials. Other teams are also making progress in treating ALS: at the University of California, Davis, the American Casey Harrell has regained speech with a precision close to 99 percent using another brain-machine interface tested as part of the BrainGate clinical trial.