Mira Murati, former Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI and current CEO of Thinking Machines Lab, was interviewed by Bloomberg in San Francisco. This was her first major public appearance in approximately 18 months. Over the past year and a half, the company has remained largely low-profile, focusing primarily on fundraising, recruiting researchers, and launching Tinker, an API product for fine-tuning open-source models.
The interactive model focuses on external priorities.
Murati did not reveal many new plans this time, but for the first time, she systematically introduced the company’s developing “interactive model.” According to her, these models are not traditional question-and-answer interfaces, but instead continuously process audio, text, and video inputs at intervals of approximately 200 milliseconds.
She said this design aims to more closely mimic authentic human communication, including interruptions, pauses, and mid-sentence corrections. She described this direction as the first step in the company’s product roadmap, rather than a finished, mature product. She did not provide a specific timeline for its release.
Responding to the OpenAI Board Controversy
In the interview, Murati also discussed the turmoil in November 2023 when the OpenAI board removed Sam Altman. At the time, she briefly served as interim CEO, stating that her decisions were consistently guided by two priorities: protecting the company’s mission and stabilizing the team.
She said that without her intervention during those days and the subsequent phases, OpenAI might have "collapsed." However, she also acknowledged that, in hindsight, she should have more actively sought additional information and pushed for a clearer transition plan and greater transparency. She did not directly answer whether she still trusts Altman.
Shift the focus to industry governance
In the interview, Murati repeatedly steered the conversation toward broader industry issues. She believes that the real cause for concern is not any individual leader, but rather the excessive concentration of key decisions in the hands of a few, coupled with insufficient checks and balances.
She said the industry has previously focused too much on the personal traits of leaders and not enough on governance structures. She is concerned that this issue is not limited to OpenAI but also exists across the broader AI industry.
Discussing talent mobility and the competitive environment
Regarding the recent departures of several prominent researchers from Thinking Machines, Murati sought to downplay the impact, stating that building a cutting-edge AI lab from scratch compresses organizational fluctuations that would typically occur over several years into a concentrated period of just a few months.
She also noted that the high salaries in the battle for AI talent certainly attract external attention, but this is usually not the sole reason for personnel movement. She did not position the company as having “beating competitors” as its core goal, but instead emphasized product direction and research pace.
Maintain a cautious stance on the prospects of AI
In discussions about AI’s impact on employment, social risks, and potential misuse, Murati rejected the binary narrative of an inevitable path toward utopia or runaway失控. She emphasized that the current stage is still shaping the future of AI.
However, she also emphasized that if humans relax their control over the system too soon, the future could yield significantly different outcomes—and not necessarily better ones. This statement aligns with her repeated emphasis during the interview on governance and human intervention.