Mira Murati has once again been recognized among the most influential figures in artificial intelligence, with the Albanian-born technology executive featured prominently in TIME’s 2026 list of the 100 people shaping the future of AI.
TIME published its fourth annual TIME100 AI on August 27, bringing together 100 leaders, innovators, shapers and thinkers influencing the rapidly developing field. Murati appears on the worldwide cover alongside some of the biggest names in technology, including Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Dario Amodei, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, Ilya Sutskever and Fei-Fei Li.
The recognition comes as Murati enters a new chapter of her career. After becoming one of the best-known executives at OpenAI, she is now the co-founder and CEO of Thinking Machines Lab, an AI company she launched after leaving the organization.
Murati previously served as OpenAI’s chief technology officer and became one of the central figures behind the company’s rapid rise. During her time there, she was closely involved with products including ChatGPT, DALL-E and other major AI developments.
Her profile in the 2026 TIME100 AI is particularly notable because she is no longer at OpenAI. Instead, she is now leading Thinking Machines Lab as the company works to develop a new generation of AI systems and research.
The 2026 TIME100 AI reflects how much the artificial intelligence industry has expanded beyond the companies developing the biggest models. The list includes technology executives and researchers, but also policymakers, labor leaders, activists and public figures involved in the debate over how AI should affect society.
Among those featured are OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, xAI founder Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, AI researcher Fei-Fei Li and Safe Superintelligence co-founder Ilya Sutskever. The list also includes International Telecommunication Union Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin, actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Paris Hilton.
For Murati, the recognition adds another major international milestone to a career that began in Albania and took her to the center of the global technology industry.
Born in Vlorë, Murati went on to study engineering in the United States before entering the technology sector. Her career eventually brought her to OpenAI, where she became one of the most recognizable women in the AI industry and briefly served as interim CEO during the company’s leadership crisis in 2023.
Murati has previously appeared on TIME’s TIME100 Next list in 2023 and TIME100 AI list in 2024.
She now leads Thinking Machines Lab as it seeks to build a new generation of AI systems and research.
The latest TIME recognition places Murati once again alongside the people at the center of the global AI race — and puts an Albanian-born executive on one of the most prominent technology lists in the world.
