Time magazine on Thursday named the “Architects of AI” its Person of the Year, recognizing U.S. tech leaders whose work in artificial intelligence is reshaping society, the economy, and global policy.
Among those highlighted are Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and xAI’s Elon Musk, alongside Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, AMD’s Lisa Su, Google AI chief Demis Hassabis, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, and Stanford professor Fei-Fei Li.
Time said the group has “grabbed the wheel of history, developing technology and making decisions that are reshaping the information landscape, the climate, and our livelihoods.”
One of the magazine’s covers pays homage to the iconic 1932 photo of ironworkers sitting on a steel beam in New York City, reimagined with AI leaders positioned above a cityscape.
“Racing both beside and against each other, they placed multibillion-dollar bets on one of the biggest physical infrastructure projects of all time,” the magazine wrote. “AI emerged as arguably the most consequential tool in great-power competition since the advent of nuclear weapons.”
Time credited not only AI developers and companies behind popular models like ChatGPT and Claude, but also investors such as SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, who has poured billions into the technology.
The magazine noted that 2025 marked a turning point for AI, moving from promise to reality, with ChatGPT usage alone doubling to reach 10 percent of the world’s population. Huang projected that AI could expand the global economy from $100 trillion to $500 trillion.
However, Time also acknowledged AI’s risks, including lawsuits alleging chatbots contributed to suicides and mental health crises, as well as concerns over job displacement as companies increasingly adopt AI models.
Notably, the magazine avoided using AI to create its cover art, opting instead for human illustrators.
Thomas Hudson, chief analyst at Forrester, praised the selection, describing AI as “the gravitational center of 2025 for the economy and the source of endless discussions on how it will shape the future of our societies.”
