Thinking Machines Lab

Overview

Thinking Machines Lab (TML) is an AI research lab founded by Mira Murati, former CTO of OpenAI. The lab focuses on interactive AI systems, particularly voice and video interaction with sub-half-second latency. Its architectural thesis is that true interactivity requires end-to-end system design rather than scaffolding TTS/VAD components onto a text model.

Timeline

• 2026-05-13-AI-Digest — TML released its first model, TML-Interaction-Small, on May 12 as a limited research preview (partner access only, no public GA, no pricing disclosed). The model is a 276B-parameter mixture-of-experts with 12B active parameters, processing audio and video in 200ms parallel chunks and self-deciding when to interject; it hits a 0.40s response latency floor versus GPT-Realtime-2’s 1.18s minimum. TML’s framing — “interactivity is what OpenAI gets wrong about voice” — positions the lab as an architectural critic of scaffolded voice approaches from the first ship.

Key Developments

1. TML-Interaction-Small (May 2026): 276B-parameter MoE (12B active), 200ms audio/video chunks, 0.40s response latency floor — the first model release from the lab and a direct architectural counter-thesis to scaffolded voice systems. Limited research preview; partner access only.