Time magazine names ‘Architects of AI’ as 2025 ‘Person of the Year’

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,” Time said in a social media post.

2025 was the year when artificial intelligence’s full potential roared into view, and when it became clear that there will be no turning back.

For delivering the age of thinking machines, for wowing and worrying humanity, for transforming the present and transcending the… pic.twitter.com/mEIKRiZfLo

— TIME (@TIME) December 11, 2025

What Time Magazine said

The magazine was deliberate in selecting people — the “individuals who imagined, designed, and built AI” — rather than the technology itself, though there would have been some precedent for that.

“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,” wrote Sam Jacobs, the editor-in-chief, in an explanation of the choice.

“The drama surrounding the selection of the PC over Apple’s Steve Jobs later became the stuff of books and a movie.”

Two cover images

Time Magazine also released two cover images, with one resembling the “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper” photograph from the 1930s, showing the eight tech leaders sitting on the beam.

Another cover image shows scaffolding surrounding the giant letters “AI” made to look like computer componentry.

Today, @TIME names the 2025 TIME Person of the Year: The Architects of AI.

In 2025, the leaders shaping, building, and driving transformation in AI wield unparalleled influence as this technology reshapes the world. @TIME is committed to serving our audiences with the trusted… pic.twitter.com/U6KJoOIJQj

— Jessica Sibley (@jsibo) December 11, 2025

Five of the eight people selected — Musk, Zuckerberg, Huang, Altman and Su — are already billionaires with a collective fortune of $870 billion, based on the latest estimates compiled by Forbes magazine. Much of the wealth has been accumulated during the past three years of AI fever.

The magazine noted AI company CEOs’ attendance at President Donald Trump’s inauguration this year at the Capitol as a herald for the prominence of the sector.

“This was the year when artificial intelligence’s full potential roared into view, and when it became clear that there will be no turning back or opting out,” Jacobs wrote.

Trump was 2024’s Person of the Year

After winning his second bid for the White House, Trump was named 2024’s person of the year by the magazine, succeeding Taylor Swift, who was the 2023 person of the year.

The magazine was bought by Marc Benioff in 2018. Benioff, one of the co-founders of cloud-computing firm Salesforce, has called AI “probably the most important” technological wave of his lifetime. He has repeatedly said he doesn’t get involved in Time’s editorial decisions. The magazine’s selection dates from 1927, when its editors have picked the person they say most shaped headlines over the previous 12 months.