A senior executive at OpenAI, who briefly served as interim CEO during a tumultuous period last year, has announced her departure from the artificial intelligence company. 

Mira Murati, OpenAI's chief technology officer, stated in a written message on Wednesday that she has "made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI" after much consideration. She expressed her desire to “create the time and space to do my own exploration.”

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Later on Wednesday, CEO Sam Altman revealed that two other top executives are also leaving. Murati, along with Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew and research leader Barret Zoph, made their decisions “independently of each other and amicably,” according to Altman's note to employees shared on social media.

These departures mark the latest in a series of high-profile exits from San Francisco-based OpenAI, which began as a nonprofit research lab and is renowned for developing ChatGPT. In August, co-founder and president Greg Brockman announced he was “taking a sabbatical” until the end of the year. Another co-founder, John Schulman, joined rival company Anthropic in August, while Ilya Sutskever, who led the AI safety team, left in May to start his own AI venture.

Following Sutskever's exit, Jan Leike, his co-leader in the safety team, also resigned, criticizing OpenAI for prioritizing flashy products over safety.

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In her farewell note to colleagues, Murati spoke highly of the company and Altman, describing OpenAI as being “at the pinnacle of AI innovation” and expressing the difficulty of leaving a place she cherishes.

Altman acknowledged Murati's contributions and noted that leadership changes are typical in a rapidly growing company. “I obviously won't pretend it's natural for this one to be so abrupt, but we are not a normal company,” he stated in a post on X, also announcing that six other individuals are taking on new roles.

Murati’s brief stint as interim CEO came after the board of directors unexpectedly fired Altman, causing significant upheaval in the AI sector. The company later appointed another interim CEO before reinstating Altman and replacing most of the board members responsible for his ousting.