Who is Mira Murati? Meet the former OpenAI executive building her own AI company
Who is Mira Murati? Meet the former OpenAI CTO behind ChatGPT's rise and discover her new artificial intelligence company, Thinking Machines Lab.
Mira Murati helped oversee the development of some of the world's most recognisable artificial intelligence products before leaving OpenAI to establish her own company. The Albanian-born technology executive is now co-founder and CEO of Thinking Machines Lab, a San Francisco-based AI research business.
After playing a leadership role in the development of ChatGPT, DALL-E and Sora, Murati has turned her attention towards creating AI systems that organisations can customise for their own needs.
Who is Mira Murati?
Mira Murati is a technology entrepreneur and engineer who was born in Albania. She studied at Colby College and Dartmouth College before beginning her career in the technology industry.
She worked at Tesla, contributing to projects involving the Model X and early Autopilot technology, before joining Leap Motion, a company developing interfaces for virtual and augmented reality.
What did Mira Murati do at OpenAI?
Murati joined OpenAI in 2018 and eventually became its chief technology officer. In that position, she oversaw teams working across research, product development and AI safety.
During her time at the company, OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, GPT-4, DALL-E and Sora, its AI video-generation system.
Murati also briefly served as OpenAI's interim chief executive during the leadership crisis surrounding Sam Altman in November 2023.
She left the company in September 2024.
What is Thinking Machines Lab?
After leaving OpenAI, Murati established Thinking Machines Lab, which publicly launched in February 2025.
The company's focus is on building AI technology that people and organisations can adapt to their particular requirements, rather than relying entirely on standardised systems.
Its products include Tinker, a platform designed to help developers customise AI models. The company attracted considerable investment before becoming widely known for its products.
Why is Mira Murati important to AI?
Murati is one of the technology executives associated with AI's transition from specialised research into widely used consumer products.
Her work also connects directly to entertainment through DALL-E and Sora, technologies that have helped expand interest in AI-generated images and video.
With Thinking Machines Lab, she is attempting to shape the next stage of that transformation as an independent company founder.
