Ex-OpenAI CTO launches startup to bridge the gap between AI research and real-world applications

Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati has launched Thinking Machines Lab, an AI startup aimed at democratizing AI by making it more understandable, customizable, and collaborative for diverse applications. “We’re building a future where everyone has access to the knowledge and tools to make AI work for their unique needs and goals,” the company states on its website.

Recently, an AI startup co-founded by other former OpenAI alumni, including chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, made waves for talks that would value the company, known as Safe Superintelligence at $20 billion. It has no products, customers, or revenue.

Now Murati leads a team of 30 seasoned AI researchers and engineers—many hailing from leading labs such as OpenAI, Meta, and Mistral. The public benefit corporation Thinking Machines Lab aims to accelerate the scientific understanding of frontier AI systems while bridging the gap between core R&D insights and real-world deployment. Under the guidance of Murati and Chief Scientist John Schulman, the company is focusing on transparent model development practices, open collaboration and modular architectures that can be adapted to various industry-specific applications, from precision manufacturing to life sciences.

We are scientists, engineers, and builders who’ve created some of the most widely used AI products, including ChatGPT and Character.ai, open-weights models like Mistral, as well as popular open source projects like PyTorch, OpenAI Gym, Fairseq, and Segment Anything.

A mission to accelerate science

At the core of Thinking Machines Lab’s vision is a commitment to accelerating the scientific understanding of frontier AI systems. “The scientific community’s understanding of frontier AI systems lags behind rapidly advancing capabilities. Knowledge of how these systems are trained is concentrated within the top research labs, limiting both the public discourse on AI and people’s abilities to use AI effectively,” the company explains on its website. As AI models grow increasingly complex, researchers and engineers often struggle to decipher how these systems function or how to adapt them for practical use. Murati’s startup seeks to address this challenge head-on by fostering a clearer, more accessible understanding of advanced AI.

Transparency and collaboration as pillars

Unlike some AI ventures that guard their innovations behind proprietary walls Thinking Machines Lab will emphasize transparent model development practices and open collaboration. “We believe that we’ll most effectively advance humanity’s understanding of AI by collaborating with the wider community of researchers and builders. We plan to frequently publish technical blog posts, papers, and code,” the company affirms on its website. The company plans to regularly publish technical research and code, aligning with the R&D community’s values of shared progress and open science.

A key technical focus for Thinking Machines Lab is the development of modular architectures—AI systems designed to be customized for industry-specific applications. “We see enormous potential for AI to help in every field of work. While current systems excel at programming and mathematics, we’re building AI that can adapt to the full spectrum of human expertise and enable a broader spectrum of applications,” the website states.