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The Architects of AI: Time's 2025 Person of the Year

• By John K. Waters
• 12/16/2025

When Time magazine revealed its 2025 Person of the Year on Thursday, it didn't select a single individual. Instead, the publication honored a collective: the business leaders behind the artificial intelligence revolution. The move marked a rare departure from tradition, underscoring just how profoundly AI has reshaped the technological and economic landscape in a single year.

The cover story spotlights six executives who have driven AI from laboratory curiosity to mainstream phenomenon: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, xAI CEO Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, AMD CEO Lisa Su, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Together, they represent the vanguard of a technology that Time described as reaching its "full potential" in 2025.

"Person of the Year is a powerful way to focus the world's attention on the people that shape our lives," Time Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs wrote in a piece explaining the decision. "And this year, no one had a greater impact than the individuals who imagined, designed, and built AI."

The selection carries particular weight given Time's 98-year history of the honor. Since 1927, the magazine's editors have identified the person or concept that most shaped the previous 12 months. While individuals typically claim the title (e.g., President Trump in 2024, Taylor Swift in 2023), Time has occasionally recognized groups or even abstract concepts. In 1982, the magazine chose the personal computer. In 2006, it was "You," meant to capture the explosion of social media and user-generated content.

The decision to spotlight AI's architects rather than the technology itself was deliberate. "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," Jacobs wrote, referencing the magazine's precedent for such choices. He even noted the controversy that surrounded the PC selection over Apple's Steve Jobs, a drama that "later became the stuff of books and a movie."

For those tracking the technology industry, the choice reflects an undeniable reality. While AI has been developing for decades, it exploded into public consciousness in late 2022 with OpenAI's release of ChatGPT. The chatbot's ability to generate human-like text sparked what can only be described as an arms race among tech companies. Over three years, firms have competed to release increasingly sophisticated models, pouring billions into AI infrastructure and triggering a global competition that has redefined corporate priorities and geopolitical tensions alike.

The economic impact has been staggering. Nvidia, once a niche producer of video game chips, has become the world's most valuable company on the strength of its AI processors. The company recently became the first to reach a $5 trillion market capitalization, a milestone that would have seemed fantastical just a few years ago. The AI boom has also intensified U.S.-China tensions, as both superpowers jockey for technological dominance in a sector increasingly viewed as critical to national security and economic competitiveness.

"It made sense for Time to anoint AI because 2025 was the year that it shifted from a novel technology explored by early adopters to one where a critical mass of consumers see it as part of their mainstream lives," Thomas Husson, principal analyst at research firm Forrester, told the Associated Press.

Yet Time's recognition came with acknowledgment of AI's darker dimensions. The magazine highlighted growing concerns about the technology's impact, particularly on young users. Among the stories it referenced was that of Adam Raine, a 16-year-old who died by suicide after interactions with ChatGPT. The tragedy underscores the ethical questions that trail AI's rapid adoption: questions about mental health, misinformation, job displacement, and the concentration of power in the hands of a few tech executives.

"We recognize a force that has dominated the year's headlines, for better or for worse," Jacobs wrote Thursday, capturing the ambivalence that surrounds even AI's most impressive achievements.

The selection process itself drew considerable speculation. Prediction markets had floated several candidates, including individual tech CEOs like Huang and Altman, as well as Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope whose election followed the death of Pope Francis earlier this year. President Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani were also mentioned as contenders.

But in the end, Time chose to focus on the collective force reshaping how we work, create, and communicate. By naming the Architects of AI, the magazine signals that 2025 will be remembered not for a single figure's achievements, but for the emergence of a technology that promises (or threatens, depending on your perspective) to transform nearly every aspect of human life.

Whether that transformation proves beneficial or catastrophic remains an open question. What's certain is that the six executives on Time's cover have irrevocably altered the trajectory of the 21st century. For delivering what Time called "the age of thinking machines," they've earned their place in the magazine's storied history.