Mira Murati. Ermira "Mira" Murati (born 16 December 1988) is an engineer, researcher, and tech executive. She served as chief technology officer of OpenAI from May 2022 to September 2024.

Early life and education
Murati was born on 16 December 1988 in Vlorë, Albania. At age 16, Murati won a scholarship and attended the Pearson United World College of the Pacific on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, from which she graduated in 2005.

Murati studied at a dual-degree program in the United States, receiving a Bachelor of Arts from Colby College in 2011, followed in 2012 by a Bachelor of Engineering from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College.

Career

Early career
Murati briefly worked for Zodiac Aerospace as an intern before joining electric car company Tesla in 2013. In Tesla she joined as a product manager on the Model X directly after her bachelor's in Mechanical engineering. From 2016 until joining OpenAI in 2018, she worked for augmented reality start-up Leap Motion (now Ultraleap). In 2018, She joined as the VP of applied AI and has since been promoted to CTO of OpenAI.

OpenAI

Murati joined OpenAI in 2018 as the "VP of Applied AI and Partnerships" in December 2020, and became chief technology officer (CTO) in May 2022. As CTO, she led its work on ChatGPT, Dall-E, Codex and Sora, while overseeing its research, product and safety teams. She oversaw technical advancements and direction of OpenAI's various projects, including the development of advanced AI models and tools. Her work was instrumental in the development and deployment of some of OpenAI's most notable products, such as the Generative Pretrained Transformer (GPT) series of language models. Her work included pushing the boundaries of machine learning while advocating for the responsible and ethical use of AI technologies. Commenting about the potential loss of creative jobs to AI, Murati said that "maybe [the jobs] shouldn’t have been there in the first place".

In November 2023, Murati briefly took over as interim chief executive officer of OpenAI following the removal of Sam Altman from the job. She was replaced by Emmett Shear three days later, who was in turn ousted when Altman was reinstated five days after being removed. Following this series of events, Murati returned to her role as CTO.

In September 2024, Murati announced that she was stepping down as CTO to allow her the opportunity to "do my own exploration". In her exit memo, she expressed gratitude towards the OpenAI team and highlighted the success of their recent developments in AI, including speech-to-speech technology and OpenAI's work on "robust, aligned, and steerable" models. This move came amid a wider executive exodus as OpenAI chief research officer Bob McGrew and a vice president of research, Barret Zoph, also announced their departures soon after.

Thinking Machines Lab 
In October 2024, it was reported that Murati was aiming to secure funding of $100 million for her AI startup, centered on "proprietary models". In December 2024, the startup filed paperwork in Delaware to establish a benefit corporation under the name Thinking Machines Lab, Inc. In January 2025, the startup made its first hires, including former OpenAI executive Jonathan Lachman. Still in its early stages, the "mysterious" startup had recruited about 10 engineers and researchers from top AI firms like OpenAI, Character.ai, and Google DeepMind.

Awards and recognition
In October 2023, Murati was ranked 57th on Fortune's list of "The 100 Most Powerful Women in Business of 2023".

In September 2023, when writing for Time's 2023 100 Next list of rising leaders across industries, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella praised Murati's "ability to assemble teams with technical expertise, commercial acumen, and a deep appreciation for the importance of mission". Nadella went on to say, "Mira has helped build some of the most exciting AI technologies we’ve ever seen, including ChatGPT, DALL-E, and GPT-4."

In June 2024, Dartmouth College awarded Murati an honorary Doctor of Science for having "democratized technology and advanced a better, safer world for us all".

In September 2024, Murati was included in Time's list of "The 100 Most Influential People in AI 2024".

Publications

References

External links

Living people
1988 births
People from Vlorë
Albanian emigrants to the United States
Albanian inventors
Albanian engineers
American people of Albanian descent
People educated at a United World College
Colby College alumni
Thayer School of Engineering alumni
Dartmouth College alumni
Artificial intelligence ethicists
American women engineers
Tesla, Inc. people
OpenAI people
American technology executives
Chief technology officers