Liquid AI vs Thinking Machines Lab

Liquid AI Enters German Market Via Vago Solutions Partnership

US-based AI startup Liquid AI, an MIT spin-off valued at about $2.35 billion, is entering the German market through a development partnership with Vago Solutions GmbH from Hennef. The collaboration aims to build efficient AI models that companies and public authorities can operate on their own infrastructure instead of in the cloud. Liquid AI, founded in 2023, develops Liquid Foundation Models based on Liquid Neural Networks, which require less computing power than conventional large language models. Vago Solutions, known for the open-source German-language model SauerkrautLM, will adapt Liquid AI's models to specific industries via fine-tuning. The move addresses growing demand for compact, specialized on-premise AI solutions in Germany, driven by data protection, compliance, cost, and energy concerns. Financial details of the partnership were not disclosed.

• Liquid AI has formed a development partnership with Vago Solutions GmbH to enter the German market.
• Liquid AI was founded in 2023 as a spin-off from MIT's CSAIL.
• Liquid AI raised a $250 million Series A led by AMD Ventures, reaching a $2.35 billion valuation.

Liquid AI Enters German Market with Vago Solutions Partnership

US AI company Liquid AI, a 2023 MIT CSAIL spin-off valued at around $2.35 billion, has entered the German market through a development partnership with Vago Solutions GmbH, a specialized AI firm based in Hennef. The collaboration aims to build efficient AI models that companies and public authorities can run on their own infrastructure, on-premise instead of in the cloud. Liquid AI uses Liquid Neural Networks instead of transformer architectures, with open-source LFM2 and LFM2.5 models and the LEAP deployment platform. Vago, known for the German-language open-source model SauerkrautLM, will fine-tune and adapt the models to specific industries and domains. The companies did not disclose financial details or the scope of the cooperation. The partnership reflects growing demand for compact, specialized AI models for data-protection, compliance, cost and energy reasons in German-speaking markets.

• Liquid AI was founded in 2023 as a spin-off from MIT CSAIL and is based in Brookline, Massachusetts, with around 120 employees.
• Liquid AI raised a $250 million Series A led by AMD Ventures in late 2024, reaching a valuation of approximately $2.35 billion.
• Liquid AI and Vago Solutions GmbH announced a development partnership to deploy efficient, on-premise AI models in Germany.

Putting Task Expertise into RL Achieves State-of-the-Art Performance on Text-to-SQL

Thinking Machines Lab announced two new updates: a research breakthrough in RL for text-to-SQL and new safety research grants.

Barret Zoph Joins Google as VP of Research

Barret Zoph, co‑founder of AI startup Thinking Machines Lab and a former OpenAI employee, has taken a role as vice president of research at Google. Zoph previously co‑founded Thinking Machines with Mira Murati after leaving OpenAI in October 2024, briefly returned to OpenAI in January 2026 to lead AI enterprise sales, and departed in June 2026 after a five‑month stint. Tech reporting notes Zoph was fired from Thinking Machines earlier this year. Google said it expects Zoph to contribute reinforcement learning and post‑training expertise to its Gemini efforts. The move is one of several high‑profile executive shifts in the AI industry this year.

• Barret Zoph co‑founded Thinking Machines Lab and later rejoined OpenAI.
• Zoph spent five months at OpenAI in 2026 heading AI enterprise sales and left in June 2026.
• Zoph was reported to have been fired from Thinking Machines earlier in 2026.

AI Demands New Interaction Models for Designers

The article argues that recent multimodal AI models are changing the fundamental grammar of software interaction, shifting interfaces from task-driven, turn-taking flows to continuous, intent-driven exchanges. It highlights a research preview from Thinking Machines Lab that demonstrates real-time multimodal 'interaction models' which can listen, see, and respond across audio, video, and text while building interfaces (a generative UI) on the fly. The author outlines design implications — rebuilding mental models, new entry/navigation conventions, deliberate intervention points, and routing judgment to humans — particularly for enterprise contexts that require auditability and accountability.

• Thinking Machines Lab released a research preview called Interaction Models demonstrating real-time multimodal exchange (audio, video, and text) and on-the-spot interface generation.
• The article’s author, Arin Bhowmick, is Chief Design Officer at SAP.
• A paper from TCS Research, “Can LLMs Perceive Time?”, found top models estimate task duration four to seven times too high and cannot accurately report how long their own work took.