The “Architects of AI” were named Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2025 on Thursday. Time said 2025 was the year when the potential of artificial intelligence “roared into view” with no turning back.
“For delivering the age of thinking machines, for wowing and worrying humanity, for transforming the present and transcending the possible, the Architects of AI are TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year,” the magazine said in a social media post.The magazine stated that the recognition goes to the people, “the individuals who imagined, designed, and built AI” rather than the technology.
Editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs explained the decision by pointing to past choices, “We’ve named not just individuals but also groups, more women than our founders could have imagined (though still not enough), and, on rare occasions, a concept: the endangered earth, in 1988, or the personal computer, in 1982. The drama surrounding the selection of the PC over Apple’s Steve Jobs later became the stuff of books and a movie.”
Thomas Husson of Forrester wrote in an email that it was the year AI moved from “a novel technology explored by early adopters to one where a critical mass of consumers see it as part of their mainstream lives.”
Who were the others on the list?
Prediction markets had also flagged AI as a major contender, alongside tech leaders such as Jensen Huang (Nvidia) and Sam Altman (OpenAI). Political figures like Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani were also in the running.
Historical context
Time has selected a Person of the Year every year since 1927, choosing the person who most shaped headlines, “for good or ill.” Trump was the 2024 Person of the Year, following Taylor Swift in 2023. Time released two covers for this year’s issue.
One, by digital artist Jason Seiler, recreates the iconic 1932 “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper” photo but replaces the construction workers with tech and AI leaders including Mark Zuckerberg, Lisa Su, Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Sam Altman, Demis Hassabis, Dario Amodei, and Fei-Fei Li.
The second cover, by illustrator Peter Crowther, shows the same group working amid scaffolding surrounding the letters “AI.” Officially, the title is given to “the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse.”Last year’s honoree was President Trump.