Ex-OpenAI CEO Mira Murati stealth AI lab launches its first ever product

Mira Murati

Ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati is back in the AI spotlight with a new venture. Her stealth startup, Thinking Machines Lab, has launched its very first product, Tinker, a tool designed to make creating custom AI models easier than ever, according to the Guardian,

Tinker is aimed at researchers, developers, and even hobbyists who want to experiment with cutting-edge AI. Traditionally, building or fine-tuning large AI models has been a complex and resource-heavy process. It requires managing powerful clusters of GPUs, juggling software tools, and constantly monitoring training runs to ensure stability. Tinker automates much of this process, letting users focus on designing and refining their models rather than worrying about the technical hurdles.

“We believe Tinker will help empower researchers and developers to experiment with models and make frontier capabilities much more accessible to all people,” Murati told WIRED ahead of the launch. The idea is to democratize access to AI tools that were once the exclusive domain of big tech companies and elite academic labs.

The product comes from a team with deep roots in OpenAI, including researchers who were instrumental in building ChatGPT. Beta testers say Tinker is not only powerful but also far more user-friendly than similar tools on the market. John Schulman, another OpenAI veteran and co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab, explained, “We abstract away the distributed training details, but we still give people full control over the data and the algorithms. There’s a bunch of secret magic, but people can fully manage the training loop themselves.”

By simplifying the process of fine-tuning AI models, Tinker could open the doors to a new wave of innovation. Researchers and businesses can now create AI models optimized for very specific tasks — from solving math problems to drafting legal agreements or answering medical questions — without needing a massive infrastructure or a team of engineers.

Murati is clear about the vision behind Thinking Machines Lab: to demystify frontier AI research and make it accessible to as many people as possible. “We’re making what is otherwise a frontier capability accessible to all, and that is completely game-changing,” she said. With Tinker, the startup hopes to unleash the creativity of AI enthusiasts worldwide, helping to push the boundaries of what these models can do.