Ermira "Mira"Murati (born 16 December 1988) is an engineer, researcher, and tech executive. She served aschief technology officer ofOpenAI from May 2022 to September 2024.
Murati briefly worked forZodiac Aerospace as an intern before joining electric car companyTesla 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-upLeap Motion (now Ultraleap). In 2018, She joined as the VP of applied AI and has since been promoted to CTO of OpenAI.[13][14][15][16][17]
Murati joinedOpenAI in 2018 as the "VP of Applied AI and Partnerships" in December 2020, and became chief technology officer (CTO) in May 2022.[18] As CTO, she led its work onChatGPT,Dall-E,Codex andSora, while overseeing its research, product and safety teams.[14][19][20][21] 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.[22][23] Her work included pushing the boundaries of machine learning while advocating for the responsible and ethical use of AI technologies.[24] 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".[25]
In November 2023, Murati briefly took over as interim chief executive officer of OpenAI following theremoval of Sam Altman from the job.[26][27][11][28] She was replaced byEmmett 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.[29][30][31]
In September 2024, Murati announced that she was stepping down as CTO to allow her the opportunity to "do my own exploration".[32][33] 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.[33] 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.[34]
In February 2025, Murati launched an AI startup, Thinking Machines Lab. It was reported to have hired "a team of about 30 leading researchers and engineers from competitors including OpenAI, Meta and Mistral."[35][36][37][38][1]
In October 2023, Murati was ranked 57th onFortune's list of "The 100 Most Powerful Women in Business of 2023".[39][40]
In September 2023, when writing forTime's 2023100 Next list of rising leaders across industries, Microsoft CEOSatya 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."[22]
In June 2024, Dartmouth College awarded Murati an honoraryDoctor of Science for having "democratized technology and advanced a better, safer world for us all".[41][42]
In September 2024, Murati was included inTime's list of "The 100 Most Influential People in AI 2024".[43]
Murati, Ermira (Spring 2022)."Language & Coding Creativity".Dædalus (Journal of the AAAS).151 (2). Cambridge, MA: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS):156–167.doi:10.1162/daed_a_01907. Retrieved25 September 2024.
^abMurati, Mira [@miramurati] (25 September 2024)."I shared the following note with the OpenAI team today" (Tweet). Retrieved25 September 2024 – viaTwitter.Our recent releases of speech-to-speech and Open AI o1 mark the beginning of a new era in interaction and intelligence... we fundamentally changed how AI systems learn and reason through complex problems. We brought safety research from the theoretical realm into practical applications, creating models that are more robust, aligned, and steerable than ever before... I'm stepping away because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration.
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