Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati Launches AI Startup ‘Thinking Machines Lab’ with Ex-OpenAI Team

Mira Murati, the former Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI, has established an artificial intelligence startup called Thinking Machines Lab. The company is comprised of approximately 30 researchers and engineers from prominent technology companies, such as Meta, Mistral, and OpenAI.

Murati, who will serve as CEO, while John Schulman, the co-founder of OpenAI, will serve as Chief Scientist. Barret Zoph, the former Chief Research Officer of OpenAI, will serve as Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

In a blog post, the company outlined its mission to develop advanced AI systems that integrate human values and expand AI applications beyond those of existing competitors. “We are building models at the frontier of capabilities in domains like science and programming,” the post stated. “Ultimately, the most advanced models will unlock the most transformative applications and benefits, such as enabling novel scientific discoveries and engineering breakthroughs.”

I started Thinking Machines Lab alongside a remarkable team of scientists, engineers, and builders. We’re building three things:
– Helping people adapt AI systems to work for their specific needs
– Developing strong foundations to build more capable AI systems
– Fostering a…

— Mira Murati (@miramurati) February 18, 2025

Thinking Machines Lab plans to focus on multimodal AI systems that can collaborate with users and adapt to diverse applications.  The startup emphasised two critical AI gaps that must be addressed through breakthroughs that improve comprehension of AI training methodologies and allow for tailored AI model construction.

The two main objectives of organizations are to combat model misuse while creating safety standards for AI development and to make AI alignment research accessible by providing programming code, dataset materials, and technical model descriptions. “The most important breakthroughs often come from rethinking our objectives, not just optimizing existing metrics,” it stated.

OpenAI continues to meet with venture capital firms to raise funding, and rumours say Muratihas been in talks to acquire a more than $100 million investment, though no formal announcement has been made.

Since joining OpenAI in 2018, Murati has been actively involved in the development of ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Codex. After Sam Altman departed OpenAI, she became interim CEO until she opted to leave in October 2023 for separate business operations. Her career has also included top management positions at Leap Motion, an augmented reality firm, and Tesla, where she oversaw the Model X product introduction.

Thinking Machines Lab is actively hiring machine learning scientists, engineers, and a research program manager as it builds its team. Murati’s venture joins a growing list of AI startups founded by former OpenAI executives, including Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence and Anthropic.