Time Magazine has broken tradition by naming not an individual but a collective group as its 2025 Person of the Year: the architects of artificial intelligence. This landmark decision recognizes the transformative impact of AI pioneers including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, X owner Elon Musk, AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, AMD’s Lisa Su, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, and Google’s Demis Hassabis.
The magazine released two distinct covers symbolizing the AI revolution. One features an artistic representation of the letters ‘AI’ surrounded by workers, while the other reimagines the iconic ‘Lunch atop a Skyscraper’ photograph with tech leaders replacing the original ironworkers.
Time’s editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs declared that ‘no one’ had greater impact in 2025 than those who ‘imagined, designed, and built AI.’ The recognition comes as AI continues its rapid expansion following OpenAI’s ChatGPT launch in late 2022, with Altman revealing the chatbot now serves approximately 800 million users weekly.
Industry analysts note 2025 represents a tipping point in AI adoption. Forrester’s Thomas Husson observed that ‘most consumers use it without even being aware of it,’ noting AI integration into hardware, software, and services is progressing ‘much faster than during the Internet or mobile revolutions.’
While many embrace AI for tasks ranging from vacation planning to recipe discovery, concerns persist regarding energy consumption, training data ethics, and workforce displacement. Fountech AI CEO Nik Kairinos cautioned that ‘recognition should not be confused with readiness,’ emphasizing the ongoing responsibility to develop ‘AI systems that are dependable, accountable, and aligned with human values.’
This marks the fourth time Time has awarded the distinction to a collective, following recognition of Ebola fighters (2014), whistleblowers (2002), and ‘You’ representing internet users (2006). The 1982 ‘Machine of the Year’ award honoring the computer featured tech visionaries including Apple’s Steve Jobs, establishing a precedent for celebrating technological transformation.