Thinking Machines Lab: Mira Murati’s New AI Startup with a Bold Vision

Mira Murati, the former CTO of OpenAI, has officially launched her own AI startup. As expected, it’s all about pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence.

Her new venture, Thinking Machines Lab, has just come out of stealth mode with a clear mission—to create AI tools that truly cater to people’s unique needs and goals. The startup aims to make AI more understandable, customizable, and powerful, breaking past the limitations of today’s models.

Murati is leading the company as CEO, with OpenAI co-founder John Schulman serving as chief scientist and Barret Zoph, OpenAI’s former chief research officer, stepping in as CTO.

In a heartfelt blog post shared with Growthy.web, the team at Thinking Machines Lab acknowledged that despite AI’s rapid advancements, significant challenges still exist.

“There’s a growing gap between what AI can do and how well we understand it,” the post explains. “The knowledge about how these systems are trained is mostly locked within a handful of top research labs. This limits public discussions around AI and prevents many people from harnessing its full potential. And while AI holds immense promise, it’s still difficult for users to mold these systems to fit their specific needs and values.”

To bridge this gap, Thinking Machines Lab is committed to developing multimodal AI systems that don’t just automate tasks but work alongside humans in a truly collaborative way. Their goal is to build AI that adapts to human expertise, making it accessible across a wide range of industries and professions.

“We’re pushing the boundaries of AI in critical areas like science and programming,” the blog post states. “At the heart of our work is the belief that the most advanced models can lead to groundbreaking discoveries—whether it’s a major scientific breakthrough or an engineering marvel that changes the world.”

With some of the brightest minds in AI at the helm, Thinking Machines Lab is setting out to redefine what’s possible. If they succeed, AI won’t just be a tool—it will become a true partner in innovation.

AI safety will be at the heart of Thinking Machines Lab’s mission. The company emphasized its commitment to ensuring that the AI models it develops are used responsibly. It aims to achieve this by actively preventing misuse, openly sharing best practices for building secure AI systems, and collaborating with researchers by providing access to code, datasets, and model specifications.

“Our focus is on understanding how our systems bring real, meaningful value to people’s lives,” the company shared in its blog post. “The most significant breakthroughs often come not from simply improving what already exists but from fundamentally rethinking our goals.”

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

Mira Murati left OpenAI in October last year after spending six years at the company. At the time, she said she wanted to step away and explore new opportunities on her own. It was a big move, considering her deep involvement in shaping AI’s future at OpenAI.

Murati joined OpenAI in 2018 as the VP of applied AI and partnerships. Over the years, she played a crucial role in the company’s biggest breakthroughs. In 2022, she was promoted to Chief Technology Officer (CTO), leading the development of ChatGPT, the groundbreaking text-to-image AI DALL-E, and Codex, the AI system that powered early versions of GitHub’s Copilot. These projects changed how people interact with AI, making her one of the most influential figures in the field.

For a brief period, she even stepped in as OpenAI’s interim CEO after the unexpected firing of Sam Altman. Altman has spoken highly of her, describing her as a close ally, which speaks volumes about her leadership and influence.

For months, whispers in the tech world suggested that Murati was quietly building her own AI venture. Those rumors seem to be true. Thinking Machines Lab, her new company, now lists 29 employees from top AI firms, including OpenAI, Character AI, and Google DeepMind. The company is actively hiring machine learning scientists, engineers, and a research program manager—signs that something big is in the works.

There have also been reports that she was in discussions to raise over $100 million from venture capital firms, though Thinking Machines Lab hasn’t officially confirmed or denied it. If true, it signals serious ambition.

Murati’s career has been defined by pushing boundaries. Before OpenAI, she spent three years at Tesla as a senior product manager for the Model X, playing a key role in the early versions of Autopilot, Tesla’s AI-powered driver-assistance system. She also served as VP of product and engineering at Leap Motion, where she worked on hand- and finger-tracking motion sensors for computers.

With her new startup, Murati joins a growing list of former OpenAI executives branching out to build something of their own. She now stands alongside other AI pioneers like Ilya Sutskever, who co-founded Safe Superintelligence, and the team behind Anthropic.

Her next chapter is just beginning, and the AI world is watching closely.