Gabriel Axel Montes, Ph.D.

Gabriel Axel Montes, PhD, is a neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and cognitive science and AI researcher whose cross-cutting multi-disciplinary work sits at the intersection of consciousness, AI behavior and alignment, and global security. His work centers around “cognitive integrity”, a complex-systems view of what it takes for minds, AI, institutions, and societies to retain functional coherence along dynamic trajectories of change. He serves as the founding Program Director for the world’s first accredited Master’s degree program in Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

He is Founding Principal at Neural Axis, where he has conducted frontier technology R&D across AI, neurotech, VR/AR, robotics, AI governance, blockchain, and cognitive security, including inventing patented neural identity technology. Gabriel has led systems that translate cognitive frameworks into deployable AI products, including at AI firms SingularityNET and VERSES AI. He has guided multimillion dollar budgets and helped ventures raise 8-figures, manage global R&D hubs, translate deep-tech to prototypes and products, and go from 0-to-1 and scale to over 100 in headcount. He has over 10,000 hours of practice experience with empowered consciousness cultivation methods of various world wisdom traditions, and is a co-author of “The Consciousness Explosion” with AGI forerunner Ben Goertzel, with whom Gabriel worked on AGI as early as 2017. He has received education from various universities, including Harvard, Utrecht, Aarhus, U. Florida, U. Newcastle, and Hong Kong Polytechnic, and has published academic works on AI cognition, biometrics, consciousness, philosophy of mind, and AI alignment trajectories with 300+ citations. He has spoken at venues including the United Nations, Stanford University, and Art Basel Miami, and has delivered dozens of workshops globally on the intersection of neuroscience, consciousness, various disciplines, and walks of life. Gabriel is a co-founder of and advisor to AI startups, a Senior Governance Board Member of the Aligned Sovereign Intelligence Institute, and is Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Center for the Future of AI, Mind & Society at Florida Atlantic University. He is a co-founding member of the world’s first music band with a humanoid robot vocalist. To learn more, visit neuralaxis.org