Mira Murati, the former CTO of OpenAI, made a notable return to the public stage at Bloomberg Tech 2026 in San Francisco, after an 18-month absence. She introduced her new venture, Thinking Machines Lab, an AI startup she co-founded and now leads as CEO. The company, which began with a $10 billion valuation and a record-breaking $2 billion seed round, is currently in discussions to elevate its valuation to $50 billion.
Thinking Machines Lab has gained substantial backing, including a multiyear chip supply agreement with Nvidia for their upcoming Vera Rubin accelerators, and a partnership with Google Cloud. The company is focused on developing “interaction models” for continuous, real-time human-AI dialogue, aiming for a latency of 200 milliseconds.
Their first product, Tinker, is an API for fine-tuning open-source AI models, setting them apart from more closed ecosystems like OpenAI. Murati emphasizes the importance of human oversight in AI development, drawing from her experience at OpenAI.
Despite facing talent departures, with some team members returning to OpenAI or joining Meta, Murati remains focused on the technical direction and the importance of real-time human-AI collaboration. The Nvidia partnership highlights Thinking Machines as a significant player in the AI sector. The outcome of the ongoing funding discussions could confirm the potential for a major independent AI lab outside the predominant tech giants.
