Mira Murati, the former CTO of OpenAI, has secured two influential advisers for her new AI startup, Thinking Machines Lab. The newly added advisors are Bob McGrew, who previously served as OpenAI’s chief research officer, and Alec Radford, an ex-OpenAI researcher who played a key role in some of the company’s most groundbreaking AI innovations.
The Thinking Machines Lab website quietly listed McGrew and Radford as advisers in March, although a spokesperson from the startup did not immediately comment on the development.
McGrew’s tenure at OpenAI began in 2017 when he joined as a member of the technical staff. He was promoted to VP of research in 2018 and eventually took on the role of chief research officer. He left OpenAI in September 2024 to take a “break” after several years at the helm of research efforts. 
Radford, who departed OpenAI in late 2024 to focus on independent research, was pivotal in the development of generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs), the underlying technology powering OpenAI’s popular products like ChatGPT. Radford’s research contributions also extended to the company’s models for speech recognition (Whisper) and image generation (DALL-E).
Though Thinking Machines Lab has been tight-lipped about its research agenda and future products, the startup shared in a February announcement that it aims to build tools that will “make AI work for people’s unique needs and goals.” The company also plans to create AI systems that are more understandable, customizable, and capable than current technologies.
Mira Murati leads Thinking Machines Lab as its CEO. The company also boasts an impressive leadership team, including OpenAI co-founder John Schulman as chief scientist and Barret Zoph, who previously led model post-training at OpenAI, as the CTO.
Murati’s departure from OpenAI last October marked the end of a six-year tenure at the company, where she played a significant role in the development of transformative AI technologies such as ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Codex. Murati’s leadership at OpenAI helped shape the early iterations of GitHub’s Copilot and solidified her reputation in the AI space.
There were reports earlier this year that Murati was in discussions to raise over $100 million for Thinking Machines Lab, which already counts dozens of employees from AI powerhouses like OpenAI and Google DeepMind.
