About Drane Labs

Our mission is to develop AI that is safe, transparent, and beneficial to society.

Our Story

Drane Labs was founded in 2023 by James Hargrove and Annabelle Cortez with a clear conviction: the AI industry needed a company that put safety and transparency first — not as afterthoughts, but as foundational principles.

From a small team of four researchers in San Francisco, we've grown into an organization of dedicated engineers, scientists, and operators who share a commitment to building AI systems the world can trust. Every model we train, every dataset we curate, and every product we ship reflects our belief that responsible development and cutting-edge capability are not at odds — they're inseparable.

Our work spans fundamental research in model safety and interpretability, applied systems for mechanical vision and schematic analysis, and open-source tools for dataset provenance and auditing. We publish our findings, document our methods, and welcome scrutiny — because we believe the path to beneficial AI must be walked in the open.