Companies founded by OpenAI alumni

Thinking Machines Lab builds AI that people can adapt to their own expertise and needs. Tinker lets researchers train and fine-tune models without managing large computing clusters; its Inkling family provides open-weight models for text, images and audio.

Anthropic builds Claude, a family of AI models used for writing, coding and analysis. It pairs model development with research into how AI works internally and how to reduce harmful behavior. Its Constitutional AI approach uses written principles to guide model training.

Periodic Labs is building AI scientists that can propose ideas, run experiments in autonomous laboratories, and learn from the results. Starting with materials science, it aims to generate the experimental data needed to discover materials such as higher-temperature superconductors rather than relying only on published research.

AI safety-focused research company founded by Ilya Sutskever, Daniel Gross, and Daniel Levy. Focused exclusively on building safe superintelligence, with no products or near-term commercial pressure.

AI search company building answer engines that combine web retrieval, citations, and conversational interfaces.

AI startup building enterprise-specific agents and infrastructure for training, deploying, and continuously improving models on company workflows and data. In April 2026 it announced an $80 million round led by Kleiner Perkins, bringing total funding to $160 million.

Adept builds multimodal agents that understand screens and carry out multi-step work across business software. Its ACT-1 model was an early attempt to turn natural-language instructions into clicks, typing and other computer actions. After Amazon hired its co-founders and part of its team in 2024, Adept continued under new leadership with an enterprise-agent focus.

Robotics AI company developing foundation models and robot-learning systems for warehouse automation and industrial manipulation.

Contact-center AI company founded by Zayd Enam, Tim Shi, and Sebastian Thrun out of the Stanford AI Lab. Builds a generative-AI platform that coaches and assists customer-service agents in real time.