Time magazine has named the 'Architects of AI' as its 2025 Person of the Year, recognizing the individuals who designed and built artificial intelligence for its transformative impact as AI's potential 'roared into view' with no turning back.
Time magazine honored the 'Architects of AI' as its 2025 Person of the Year, citing 2025 as the year artificial intelligence's potential 'roared into view' and became an undeniable force. The magazine deliberately chose the individuals — 'who imagined, designed, and built AI' — over the technology itself, a decision explained by editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs, who noted previous conceptual selections like the endangered Earth or the personal computer. One striking cover image depicts eight prominent tech leaders, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, resembling the 'Lunch Atop a Skyscraper' photograph. Five of these individuals are billionaires with a collective fortune of $870 billion, largely accumulated during the recent AI boom. Thomas Husson, a principal analyst at Forrester, stated that 2025 marked AI's shift from a niche technology to one integrated into mainstream consumer lives. While celebrated for its transformative power, some experts, like Anthony Aguirre of the Future of Life Institute, voiced caution regarding the rapid development and potential catastrophic societal impacts if adequate guardrails are not established. Other contenders for the title included Pope Leo XIV, Donald Trump (who was 2024's Person of the Year), Benjamin Netanyahu, and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
