Murati’s Thinking Machines launches Inkling, its first open-weight AI model

Thinking Machines Lab, the AI startup founded by former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati, released its first AI model on Wednesday. Named Inkling, the open-weight model marks a milestone for a company that has raised $2 billion and attracted intense scrutiny since its founding in early 2025 — all without shipping a foundational model of its own.

A Bet on Customization

Inkling is a 975-billion-parameter open-weight model, meaning users can download, run, and customize the underlying system. The model is available through Thinking Machines' existing Tinker platform, the fine-tuning API the company launched in October 2025. The approach positions Thinking Machines as an alternative to closed-model providers like OpenAI and Anthropic, betting that enterprises want greater control over AI systems rather than relying on one-size-fits-all solutions.news.yahoo+2

The release fulfills a promise Murati made shortly after closing the company's $2 billion seed round in July 2025, when she wrote on X that the startup's work would include a "significant open source offering". Thinking Machines structured itself as a public benefit corporation and has repeatedly emphasized open science and democratized access to AI.wikipedia+3

From Fine-Tuning Tool to Foundation Model

Until now, Thinking Machines' shipped products consisted of Tinker, its fine-tuning API, and a research preview of "interaction models" — multimodal systems designed for real-time, full-duplex conversation — announced in May 2026. That earlier system, TML-Interaction-Small, was a 276-billion-parameter mixture-of-experts model focused on low-latency voice and video interaction, but it remained limited to select research partners.techcrunch+2

Inkling represents something different: a general-purpose foundation model aimed squarely at enterprise adoption. By releasing it as open-weight and integrating it with Tinker's customization tools, the company is positioning the model as infrastructure that businesses can adapt to their own data and workflows.wincountry+1

A Crowded Field

The launch arrives as competition in open-weight AI has intensified, with Meta's ↗ 3.28% Llama family, Alibaba's ↗ 5.10% Qwen series, and others vying for developer adoption. Thinking Machines has secured a multibillion-dollar Google Alphabet Inc. ↗ 6.88% Cloud infrastructure deal and counts Nvidia ↗ 2.93%, AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. ↘ 1.90%, and Andreessen Horowitz among its backers. Whether Inkling can carve out meaningful enterprise share against entrenched competitors will depend on how well the model performs once developers begin putting it to work.builtin+2